Saturday God answered a prayer my team at church has been praying for since I joined last spring. One of our members had expressed shortly after I joined that she believed it was time for her to be married for a second time. She had healed and felt she had clear direction to what to ask God for in her new husband.
It turned out that an acquaintance at work was God’s answer. Saturday morning they were married in a simple but very meaningful ceremony in a lovely chapel. Many of their friends and relatives joined in the celebration.
The bride was exquisite and her groom so obviously deliriously happy. It was joy to just see their faces.
I was particularly touched. The bride’s song was a favorite from a few years ago, “Your love is extravagant.” The young man singing did it well and I was immediately taken back to other times and places when that song meant so much to me. I am always joyously tearful at weddings and the song started the tears flowing immediately instead of waiting until further along.
The pastor did his part, emphasizing Jesus as the center of all good marriages and he did it a way that was humorous and drew his listeners into his message.
I carpooled with a couple of prayer team friends and we had a great time together despite me turning too early and needing to backtrack to get to the church on time. We managed and did not miss a moment. God is faithful.
What the trip did for me most was to remind me how I love the country. I lived in a very rural area in Ohio for many years and the peacefulness and quiet even just a little way off the freeway struck a chord. I need to get out of the city I dwell in more often and return to landscape made by God’s hand and not man’s work. Even a manmade garden, beautiful as the one we saw, cannot compare to the overwhelming response I have to natural settings of trees and wildflowers, lakes and streams. I sense His presence more easily there. I will be hunting another cleft soon, not far from home for time is limited, but definitely less groomed and more wild than where I live now. Do you have a wild place you love to go to and meet God?