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Promises to keep
Saturday afternoon, I attended my best friend, my heart's twin, as she walked down the bridal path to pledge her heart to her husband.
Her gown was a vision of loveliness, the ivory satin shimmering as it trailed behind her as she traveled the few remaining yards that remained between her and her beloved.
The gown could not compete however with the glow that originated in her heart of love. Even the veil could not conceal her joy.
We started the morning being totally pampered at a trendy salon, my lengthening locks contained in a tight french roll with uncountable curls fashioned from the end strands on the top of my head. (I should have counted the pins we removed later that day, it was a literal handful.) The "do" was so out of character that the bride didn't recognize me when we crossed paths between hair styles and manicures (my first).
Suitably made-up, dolled-up and dressed-up, I joined my counterpart at the altar with only one fabric-tearing trip on the hemline of my floor-length gown.
Amazingly enough, through the course of the ceremony, everyone remembered their parts and the vows were exchanged, the license signed and the long-awaited first kiss as husband and wife accomplished, to the approval of everyone in attendance.
The bride had chosen a Sandy Patty song, appropriately titled "Doxology" for the final selection during the ceremony. While Sandy sang, "Here, He is here. He has blessed us with His presence in this place, we will not be the same ... " the bride and bridegroom knelt in prayer and I cried silent tears.
I am powerless to stop my tears at any wedding. I think it is the recitation of the vows. Hearing the words, spoken as they were Saturday, with courage and conviction (not always the case in my observation) I am always taken back to my own wedding day and the vows spoken then. I whisper them again in my mind, renewing the commitment I made decades ago.
Our wedding was simplicity itself. We stood, in borrowed finery, in the presence of Judge Studholme in a Jefferson County Courthouse annex in Lakewood, Colo.
It was an unusually warm December Saturday in Colorado, the sky a brilliant blue, and from start to finish, a full two-and one-half minutes elapsed from the "Dearly beloved" to the "Now you may kiss the bride."
That phrase met with laughter from our few guests, as Danny had "jumped the gun" just a bit, leaning over for a quick peck after the judge said, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
You see, the judge was not to be denied the opportunity to intone, "And what God has joined together, let no man put asunder." I wouldn't have it any other way. Those vows, so quickly spoken, in such a simple setting, have stayed us on a course that has traversed some pretty high highs and some pretty low lows. There have been times when the vows alone have held us together, so great were the forces that were trying to pull us apart.
In visiting with the newest members of my heart-sister's family, our conversation turned to the differences in the many societies that encompass the American population. I do not speak of racial differences or of differences in class, whether rich or poor, but in the attitudes of pledges.
Bankruptcy abounds in our society. Credit card debt, so easily entered into, is not nearly as easily cleared. Yet the television tells us numerous times a day that if we have this, that or the other thing, we will find contentment and fulfillment. (We dare not even look at divorce rates, even among people of faith, for surely there we will find shame. My parents separated in the mid- '60s, for biblical reasons, yet were required by law, to endure a six-month waiting period before they could be divorced. Even following the betrayal of adultery, in that six month's time, they reconciled and remained married until death did indeed part them.
Dad, once so free and easy, never remarried, and to the best of my knowledge, didn't even date after Mom's death.)
Where once a man's handshake was his bond, we now require reams of written promises, all properly signed and sealed, that the agreed upon deal will be brought to completion.
My best friend's husband has spent most of his life along the Eastern seaboard. There he discovered that a man's word is generally not worth the paper it isn't printed on and a handshake is nothing more than an exercise in futility. He finds the people in the Greeley, Colo., area, not unlike people in our own area, to be more apt to keep their part of a bargain, without the involvement of lawyers and the intricate details of the responsibilities of the party of the first part to the party of the second part, etc.
I pray he always finds it so. I know he will find my friend's pledge true, as she is a woman of her word. There was no equivocation in the recitation of the vows, no namby-pamby alteration of the pledge made "'til death us do part." "... who keeps his oath, even when it hurts." Psalm 15:4b (NIV)
-- Dawn Cribbs knows of a certainty that dreams really do come true.