“Wow, God’s certainly going to have to work a miracle here.”
Those were my fiancée’s words on June 9, 2006, after I told her I was deploying to Iraq three months earlier than expected. We had planned on getting married at the end of August with the idea of having a few months together as a married couple before I deployed. Faced with this new timeline, we decided to move the wedding date. And move it, we did. We married three weeks later.
The twenty days in between June 9 and July 1 were a blur of phone calls, emails, and some incredible support from our friends and family. Originally the wedding was going to be in Dallas, Texas. The new location was Norfolk, Virginia, on the very busy July 4th weekend. The first thing my wife and I did was pray and commit our decision to God. Our primary goal was to not let anxiety about any single aspect of the wedding cause friction between us or our families. We wanted the event to be a celebration. We also pledged to not try to replicate in twenty days what we had initially planned for the Texas wedding.
God answered our prayers abundantly. The wedding was amazing. There was not a single detail that did not work our perfectly. All of the original wedding party was able to attend. Even our close family members made it to Virginia. The result was a wedding that honored God, a true demonstration of his love. God reminded us that no matter where a wedding takes place or the details of which bakery bakes the cake, the purpose of a wedding is to celebrate the love God gives between man and woman. We honestly believe that we did not miss a thing by not having a larger wedding in Texas and we certainly saved some money.
God also taught us a great deal about our faith and each other as we worked to pull all of the details together without any anxiety and frustration. His early blessing of our marriage under those circumstances was a foreshadowing of how he would get us through my twelve-month deployment to Iraq. I learned that my wife was a mighty prayer warrior, unflappable in the face of the pressures of planning a wedding in twenty days. Even though it was not the wedding we had originally planned, God did an incredible work, and the wedding was a precious celebration. Our wedding will always be a reminder to us of the sovereignty of his timing and his plan not our own. He showed us that a change in plans resulted in a more abundant celebration of his love.
Thank you for the plans you have for me, plans to prosper me and give me hope. Thank you for times you give us to celebrate life in abundance.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)