"The Secret's in the Sauce!"

You know how you feel after you’ve witnessed something transcendentally beautiful? It resembles that sense of goodness that permeates the air and makes you sad because you know it won’t last forever. It feels like loss.

I was at a wedding of one of my dearest friends this past weekend. It was a small affair, probably one of the smallest and holiest weddings I’ve ever been a part of. So small, in fact, that though I was simply a member of the audience, I was nearly a part of it just by being there.

Under live oaks, in the late afternoon Georgian humidity where one wants to shout hallelujah when the breeze blows, the couple exchanged their homemade vows, promising to God, each other, and those witnessing the supremacy of Christ in their love and home. I don’t cry at weddings. I normally don’t even like weddings. I cried at this one. Why? For a few reasons: their exclusiveness of the love that they share.

I had been there during her moments of rejected and unrequited love. I was there when we prayed together that God would simply put blinders on our eyes for all others but Him and that He would bring godly men into our lives. I was there when we sure love, in the romantic human sense, would never come to us. And here, before my increasingly moist eyes, amid the mosquitoes, was the culmination of all those late night conversations.

As I was sitting at a picnic table adorned with colorful tablecloths and wildflowers in mason jars, munching on BBQ and enjoying witnessing the union of not only two people, but the junction of two families, I couldn’t help but think of that wedding feast of the Lamb that we’ll be a part of. Who knows, I may not get to be that blushing bride here on earth, but I get to be a part of that beautiful Bride who is held in an ever-increasing love. I won’t be regaining my innocence, but regaining my purity.

At any rate, I really hope Heaven has BBQ.

“Soon will come the Celebration Wedding
and bundles of restoration will be our bedding.”

-BH