Holding on to the arm of a handsome man, she took her first step through the doors of the sanctuary, smiling from ear to ear, and every eye was on her. Her dress fell to the floor, and she moved down the aisle with ease and with a playful joy in her steps. She glowed from the inside out.
For the first time in my life, it was she, the mother-of-the-bride, to whom I could most closely feel a connection.
And NO, my daughters are not getting married!
The rest of the wedding and reception festivities continued, but those steps down the aisle, by the bride’s mom, were what captivated my the most. Not only did they captivate me, but I felt a kinship with this mom.
With our youngest in his final year of high school, and our daughters in the post secondary educational stage and beyond, I am closer to the mom stage than the bride stage.
As this mom was making her way down the aisle, I wondered if the marriage was everything that she had wanted for her daughter? Was the groom the man she had hoped to steal her girly’s heart? Was her daughter in the ‘right’ place in life to be making such promises?
Then I realized what this marriage was …
imperfect and messy and beautiful,
no doubt, just like that mom’s, just like my own.
The dreams I have for my children are good dreams, well intended hopes, desires that come from the heart of one whose heartbeat was the first music in my children’s ears.
But, one day, they may choose to marry, and it will be their dreams, their hopes and their desires that will send me walking down an aisle … not mine.
This is not to say that I cease to pray for the greater things for them … that they marry one who loves God, that they unite with one who will share all of life with them, that they choose a partner who will encourage them to grow and live better (as iron sharpens iron), but I acknowledge that, like their parents before them, they will make that choice.
And it will be imperfect, and messy, and beautiful.
“For this reason, a man (a daughter) will leave their mother and father …”
(Mark 10:7)
itsawonderfilledlife 