Take a breath. Slow down. Dating doesn’t have to be so rushed. It does have to be right.
“…and the bride wore white.”
It’s the title of the book that brought Katie Meyers and myself into a friendship, and it could be the first sentence in a breath taking description of a local wedding in your local paper. But it’s most fitting for Katie’s wedding story.
Last Saturday Katie Marie Meyers became Mrs. Esli Feliz.
Their wedding feast was more than an invitation to witness the wedding vows of Katie and Esli. It was an invitation to witness their love relationship with Jesus. How beautifully their special day portrayed a love for him, complete to the tale of Katie’s white wedding dress. Oh, the pastor thought it was a slip, but I don’t agree.
Here’s how it happened.
An outdoor wedding is lovely, but beware the wind. It was the same wind that made Katie’s dress blow romantically in the breeze that caused Pastor Jonathan Weibel’s notes to flutter away. It was then that he decided to just wing it. Bad decision. (Or was it?)
“You don’t deserve to wear white, Katie.” The words were barely out of his mouth when a wide-eyed look of betrayal made him want to take them back. But they did not flutter away like his notes. Instead, they hung there thick and awkward over the audience.
“That’s not what I meant to say,” he went on treading lightly. “I don’t know anything about your past, but I know that it’s the work of Jesus dying for you and for me that let’s us walk in purity because none of us is without an impure thought or act. None of us deserves to wear white, Katie. But today you stand before us as a representation of the Bride of Christ. Pure. Spotless.”
My heart hushed, knowing what I know.
What you know . . . if you’ve read her story.
“Can I still wear white on my wedding day?” That was the question that Katie brought to me so many years ago when we met at Baby’s Burgers and Shakes to sort out her love life. The answer to her question was to introduce her to Jesus. Intimately. I invited her to step into his love, too. And she did.
Since then she has been a missionary everywhere she goes. From the English camp she taught in Germany to Starbucks where she has been a barista, Katie loves to invite others in to the love of Jesus. And her wedding day was no exception. Her love story for Jesus was alive and well.
It was a double wedding celebration, really. Katie and Esli’s. And yet another feast to celebrate the Savior and His Bride, the Church.
Are you inviting others to love him with your love life?
