This is my youngest son at age 5.
It’s a self portrait.

Here he is last month.

Preparing to be a groom.

We had an adventurous quarter century between these two depictions. There were losses: three grandparents, friendships, soccer/basketball/baseball games galore, hair.

He had challenges along the way, which meant his family did too. For years he chafed against being the youngest, and his family had the rash to prove it. Then there was the very very scary bout with pneumonia, the questioning of his faith, the strain of deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up, which led him from Italy to LA, from Iceland to Chicago to Machu Picchu in search of meaning, identity, and clarity.

But goodness and gain clamber up the backs of challenge and loss and wave wildly so that those blessings are where our memories go first.
-His initial but increasingly grateful acknowledgement that God truly never abandoned him during his spiritually dry period.
-The self-recognition that yes, he’s a nifty world traveler, decent actor and poet, and surprisingly gifted house painter. But he’s really really good at teaching. English. To high schoolers. A career that can make strong men shudder and turn pale.
-He’s gained and retained a plethora of friends and mentors from childhood, college, summer jobs, and church family.
-The brothers, whose lives from his toddlerhood till he graduated elementary school he determined to saturate in misery, are now two of the people he’s closest to on earth
-Blessing upon blessing—his brothers chose wisely and well who to marry, and he gained the best sisters along with a bounty of adoring nieces and nephews.

Then, last month, he gained the title ‘husband’ when he married the woman I’ve been praying for, most likely since before she was born.
She is a delight, a perfect and practical foil for his introspective, over-thinking and charismatic personality. She is beautiful. She is wise and hard-working and enjoys being with our noisy crew.
And she loves her Savior even more than she loves my son.

The wedding was a glorious mix of solemn vows and beautiful music and food and wine and family and friends old and new. And praises to God and overflowing celebration.
As one of my dear friends said, “It was a foretaste of glory.”

Indeed. God gives us these little glimpses of what eternity will be like. We experience them at worship, work, fellowship.
Nothing about heaven will be dull.
Instead we’ll get to enjoy the best food, the best drink, the best music, the best people and praises. None of it will end and none of it will get old or stale and not a minute of it will be separate from the Bridegroom.

We’re still basking in the afterglow of Wedding Weekend and now, more than ever, anticipating the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

Wedding photos: azuregphotography