The Chuppies: And Then I Started Crying

This is a reprint of a post written about attending our wedding by a wonderful friend. You can find the original here:

http://thechuppies.blogspot.com/2012/03/and-then-i-started-crying.html

And Then I Started Crying...

Well...
Really there was no
Then.

I started crying even before the wedding started.

Because he, the groom...
He is special to us for many reasons.
First--he was our lawyer for both adoptions.
But with Selah's,
He cleared the courts and had her adoption finalized--
On the day she died.
He cleared the courts and had her adoption finalized--
And had the papers delivered to the hospital just minutes before...
And so she died with our last name--
Officially our baby.

And because he, the groom...
We knew him when his youngest daughter battled cancer.
We knew him when his house burned down.
We knew him when his sweet wife Frances died.
We wept with him at her memorial.
As he held his two girls hurting...

Though we don't know him deeply,
We've felt his hurting deeply--
This man whose heart has carried much pain.
Who was there with us--
When our hearts were drowning in love-pain-love-lost.

And because her, his bride...
I remember the first time I met her,
She was wearing a beautiful hat,
And she told me of her young husband's death,
As she held the hands of her two sweet girls...
One just only four years and the other not even two.

She moved to our area and to our church and in the seven years I've barely known her,
Not a mention of a man.
Just a mama trying to live godly--
Clinging to the only Father
She could offer to her girls.

And in the fall...
When the pain was still so deep,
He, the groom, was praying for God's guidance.
And she, the bride, was seeking God's wisdom.
And he met her.
And though the timing defied everything sensible from the world's dictation,
God often chooses His time--
Over ours.
So it made sense.
So much sense.

And it was just this Saturday--
When they were wed...
Two hearts knowing hurt.
Two hearts knowing grief.
Two hearts knowing what 1 Corinthians love really is...
They were married by the pastor.
And then their four girls were joined in family by the adoption judge who is our judge.
Our Selah and Lydia judge.
And I wept.
And it was beautiful.

Because only God can draw such beauty
From a pool of pain.
And God's goodness is so evident in this union--
A union of love's redemption.
Because only He can make things this beautiful...
And only--
In His time.

*Scott and Tia...thank you for letting me share your beautiful-God-written-story-of-love.