Wedding Frenzy

           I see the wedding boards on Pinterest and the wedding magazines in the bedrooms of girls who have never been in a serious relationship. I remember girlhood dress rehearsals. I hear young women lament their singleness and others expound their frustrations of their boyfriend’s dragged feet and future brides exasperated by the endless details and work to be done. I see the joy and passion continue long after they’ve had their own day. I know my own heart. Its intensity seems to vary from simple longing to back of the mind planning to outright obsession, but I have yet to meet a woman who does not derive at least some pleasure from weddings. So we imagine and long and plan and stress and forget and rejoice.
            
             And the Savior waits, and smiles.

             While we become enthralled by dresses and colors, flowers and centerpieces, favors and food, the Savior’s heart is swelling with incomparable anticipation, a giddiness that cannot be rivaled or contained, because the Bridegroom is waiting for His Wedding Day, His Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

             I have been frustrated with women’s obsessions with weddings at times- the planning before engagement, the seemingly loss of focus on meaning, the triviality of it all. If I were being honest, though, this is merely a projection of my self-frustration. I had always been content in my singleness and even felt “called to singleness” at one point, and yet I still loved weddings. Were my current relationship to end, while it would bring me pain and disappointment, I know that I could once again be content in my singleness, and still I know that I would look at all things weddings every now and again. I would still love weddings.

             Our love of weddings is not a “girl thing” and while it can be an idolatrous thing, a trivial thing or a missed opportunity of depth and responsibility, weddings are, without a doubt, a God thing. Our hearts are eternally hardwired to delight in weddings, to find great joy in them. When our hearts grow faint at the beauty, when we tear at the love, and eagerly wait for our moment, and when it does come hold tightly to it for as long as we can, this is your Savior’s way of giving you the slightest glimpse of the excitement growing inside of His own heart as He awaits His own Wedding.
            
              So if your earthly wedding should never come or takes longer than you expected, or when it does come budget or circumstances keep it from being the day you imagined, remember, Beloved, that an earthly wedding, no matter how grand, is merely an illustration of, an opportunity to whet your appetite for, the greatest wedding that time will ever know- a wedding that you have not just been invited to attend, but to stand on the altar of unimaginable gloriousness and redemption displayed. Weddings can be a very Godly thing. Marriages are preciously important. At the end of it all, though, they are merely illustrations. Let us not allow the beauty of the illustrations to eclipse the glory of the eternal wonder they mercifully allow us a glimpse of. Beloved, let’s not allow the preparations for the trial run to inhibit or overshadow the preparations that we were made for, chosen for, the day we truly wait for.

            Your Bridegroom is waiting with unbridled expectation and sooner than you know He will come from the hills and draw you close, whisper in your ear that the time has come. The processional will start, the beauty will be blinding, the tears will be ever flowing, and it will all crescendo into a display of compelling marvelousness of an eternally unbreakable union. And that is a day to hope for indeed.