Don't Want to Forget

I have lived in a world this past week of fleeting moments that are filled to the brim with such gratitude that I want to bottle them up and store them forever in that “Don’t Ever Forget” part of my brain. Even without storing them, I know these will always remain from the best day of my entire life.

Moments such as your best girlfriends flying across the country, arriving to your doorstep with hugs and peonies and dark chocolate and letters of love; creating sacred space at our rehearsal dinner for edifying words, flowing wine, and a room full of your 50 most favorite people; waking up with such joy and a brand-new-never-thought-of-before thought: “it’s my wedding day today;” prayer and coffee and a deep sense of feeling like you’re watching a movie and living a future dream of your life that never felt like it could come true; cameras pointed at me because I’m not the bridesmaid, but the bride; knees shaking with complete excitement to meet my groom in a garden; eyes welling up with tears as I hugged my mom and realized that it’s my wedding day; seeing Ben for the first time, radiant love too hard to contain; waiting in the back of the garden, watching Ben over the wall and hearing the harmonies of “Be Thou My Vision” fall amidst the most intimate garden; rainfall and umbrellas over exchanged vows; glimpses at my best girls standing beside me at the altar just as they do in life; celebrating having a husband, being a wife, and the rush of emotion that comes with those titles; running off to the beach to steal a few hues of sunset and some kisses with my now husband; a white wedding skirt covered in mud throughout the entirety of the evening and not caring at all; announcement as husband and wife to a candlelit tent of friends not strangers; dinner and toasts and ice-cream cookies and cake cutting and dancing and hugs and suddenly it’s our last song and we’re running away from our wedding… everything feeling way too short and that it’s an impossible task to truly savor it all.

A wedding – the most joyful celebration of us coming together as one. I can honestly say I have never been happier in my entire life than in these moments. And I can’t imagine it being any different – God had the day planned out from beginning to end, rain and all. The lighting, the friends, the joy, the smiles. It’s all His. My prayer is that He would be Our Vision… in the good and the difficult…. that it would be Him others see, and not us. I pray that we would minister to others better together than apart, and that He would use us to not only love one another well, but love others well with His love. That God would do His work through us – that’s what it’s all about. That’s what a wedding is about – and now we have the rest of our lives to do that very thing together. I can’t imagine life without Benjamin by my side and now we return to real life together. I don’t care if I’m still honeymooning over here – I will honeymoon as long as I possibly can… you only get one.

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