The year is 1979 and the place is the sleepy Central Florida town of Leesburg, long before The Villages consumed the beautiful cattle ranches and Live Oak hammocks running west to Wildwood and north toward Sunset Harbor.

My brother Geoff is best man and my friend Kirk is groomsman. Rebekah’s sister Rachel serves as matron of honor and her friend Sharon is bridesmaid.

It is wicked hot and the First Presbyterian Church is packed full with family and friends. I am wearing the first suit I have owned in my life, tan with a brown tie. And my hair, kissed by the brilliant Florida sunshine, is so light it’s almost sandy gold.

The processional music begins and in come the attendants. First Rebekah’s longtime friend Sharon; next, her sister Rachel. Then, right on cue, the most beautiful woman in the entire world walks slowly and elegantly down the long aisle to Handle’s Water Music, accompanied by her brother Joe. Rebekah is wearing her mother’s simple ivory satin wedding dress from the 1940’s, her long wavy brown hair frames a brilliant golden smile.

In that moment everything from the past two and a half years comes together in clear focus and all I can see is our life together; the brightness, the faith, the optimism, the vision for what is possible, the unfaltering belief that this life – the life that is officially being baptized into being there in the front of the sanctuary – is exactly right.

This is one of those rare moments when the hand of providence is undeniably apparent and so impossible to miss. God’s plans, the will and the purpose the Creator has for both me and for Rebekah, intersecting with our faith, our love and our obedient responsiveness to the voice of the Spirit. This is a powerful occasion, and out of this moment, these promises, this covenant, God launches something unique and spectacular and purposeful into the world.

What an amazing opportunity, what a joy filled day, what a powerful witness to the Good News!

Today, July 18 August 2024:

This morning, Rebekah and I celebrate this milestone together with gratitude and in joy. We’re in church, which is exactly the right context; we’re in worship, in the presence of God and in the company of so many faithful saints, all living stories that echo the beauty and the blessing of this good life.

If I could have peered into the future in that first moment, back in 1979, looking forward forty-five years… well, I have to defer to scripture and let the New Testament writer Paul make this point for me: “As it is written: ‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”’— the things God has prepared for those who love him….”

And we do love God. And we do love each other. But, happy and full with belief as we were in 1979, we could never have imagined how beautiful this story would turn out to be. – DEREK