We can mark the passage of time by the parties we get invited to, don’t you think?  In our twenties and thirties, the invitations are for weddings.  Lots of them.  Then the baby shower invites begin to trickle in and eventually we become intimately acquainted with the registry at Babies R Us.   But my husband and I haven’t seen these kind of invitations for awhile.  Instead, in the past few years, we’ve begun to receive  graduation invitations.  Former babysitters, children of friends, neighbors…those cute little boys and girls are all grown up and headed to college.  I love to pour over their baby photos and wonder at how quickly the time goes.  It’s the videos that do me in, though.  Watching boys go from touch football to college linebacker or girls go from princess to prom dresses chokes me up every time.

But a funny thing happened this year.

We started getting wedding invitations again.  Much younger relatives, and the oldest children of friends are beginning the journey of joining their lives with another.

I’ve always been a sucker for weddings.  The hope, the joy–it’s so palpable that I could be a complete stranger and I’d tear up at your nuptuals.

Last weekend, though, I wasn’t a stranger.  Our very dear friends’ son married his college sweetheart, and I’ve never seen a bride beam like that through the entire ceremony.  Caroline simply couldn’t stop smiling.

And although her gown was gorgeous and the flowers were oh-so-magnificent, and although our friend–the father of the groom–actually performed the ceremony, these aren’t the things that I will always remember.  Instead, whenever I think of this couple, I will think of this:

When the ceremony was almost done the soloist began singing.  Having been to about a bazillion weddings, I fully expected the bride and groom to step up and light a unity candle.  But they didn’t.  Instead, I watched, curious, as they walked back to where I thought the candle would be.  Then they knelt down together and began to pray.  And it is this simple act, the sight of the bride, in her perfect gown, and the groom, humbling themselves before God and all of us, that will stay with me.

And, I hope, with them.

Congratulations Kirk and Caroline!