It was a day of so many answered prayers; of years hoping and wishing; of friendships blooming around, gathering to worship at what the beauty and purity of marraige symbolizes in the heart of a believer, the heart of a woman.
During the season of engagement, the floral lace dress hung like a white symbol in my home. The white dress was less of a trophy or prize or garment to be earned, but instead a gown to be celebrated in. An outward expression of the inward purity I treasured so intimately inside. It's presence paralleled a phrase that cycled through my thoughts and heart. Not so much as conviction or warning, but as pleasure and confidence, echoing all the goodness I felt inside:
And the Bride Wore White.
In today's culture, there is an illusion that wearing white is simply "bridal" or that waiting for expressions of love until marraige is a lost art, like Amish bread or handwritten mail.
However, in the stillness, in the quiet recesses of my soul, I desired so greatly to protect the grandeur of marraige that it was pride-filled, in a holy way. I inwardly committed to set aside some physical acts or dating rituals or homemaking skills until that union was complete. I wanted marriage to feel different than dating, and to have the small joys of hope that I had pictured to be unique to it - whether sharing our first breakfast at 'my' table or completing God's physical blessing.
As I watch friends enter holy matrimony, what difference in these marriages is exclaimed as a radiant joy on their faces when they come before their love with purity! This fullness glitters on their faces as their gather their white wedding garments and father's arm and come before their Lord and the one that they love in full union during that holy ceremony. There is something pure in the air, and most who gather can feel that purity sparkle throughout the space. Oh what joy, oh what testimony that Spirit shares to those in the waiting spaces -- what hope to wait, what desire in union, what encouragement to continue to come together in their own marraige in celebration of what God has done.
Throughout my "waiting and hoping" years I'd heard friends talk, I heard pastors preach, I read books from I Kissed Dating Good-Bye to Passion and Purity to When God Writes Your Love Story... Though they aided in my conviction, caused controversial conversation, and kept me hoping for one more day that pure love would come, nothing convinced me of the greater power and joy of purity than that season of engagement. I kept glowing in the inward knowledge that I was coming before my bridegroom without scar, without fear, without heaviness, and was able to offer my Love this gift of freedom and honesty and the joy of intimacy.
I often reflect on Proverbs 31:12:
She does him good, and not harm,
All the days of her life.
It was circled and underlined and memorize and pondered for at least fifteen years before I ever understood the full impact of its message. All the days of her life: her dating, her hoping, her high school, her college, her single, her engaged, her tears, her frustration, her unseen hope: She does him good.
Oh my dear friends, if you are hoping, if you are waiting, do him good. Create that beautiful white wedding dress in your mind and know it sparkles even more than you imagine when your heart is cleansed and joy-filled in purity beneath it. Hold on to greater hope, engage in repentance, and trust in the goodness he offers to your faithfulness. May, one day, your marraige be blessed and shine forth in full evidence of His benevolence. May you walk down the isle in radiant testimony to what the Lord has offered as a covenant to his people in the union marraige, rejoicing to proclaim, "And the Bride Wore White."
HI friend,
ReplyDeleteI love your comparison to waiting as a lost art with amish bread and handwritten mail :) That made me smile!!
The most beautiful thing about the Bride wearing white is that is ultimately points to us as the Bride of Christ. The bright, beautiful, pure spotless bride of the Lamb!
6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Rev. 19:6-9