Beautiful

This picture brings me joy, peaceful thoughts, waves of gratitude. I have dear friends who have spent countless hours working to create a place of beauty to celebrate our wedding day. Friends who love me enough to dedicate resources and precious time working on their property. I look at their incredible generosity and the exquisite backdrop for our ceremony, and I am simply overwhelmed.

I have traveled over some treacherous paths. I’ve been swallowed up in hopelessness and weariness. When I think of some of the scenes from my past: places where joy was expected, beauty was deserved, peace was worked towards… but places where betrayals, abandonments, and shame stamped out every potential bloom, my heart can’t believe where I stand today. The gloriousness God has surrounded me with! The
view He has provided in front of me!

In a way, the darkness seems even blacker, accentuated by the light of this moment. The loneliness pierces me deeper, where love has opened starving places in me and filled that hunger. When I stare at the awesomeness of this masterpiece, composed for my wedding day, the ugliness of my past stands up. I stare at it, unable to stop shaking my head, completely in awe of where I was, and where I am now.

Last Tuesday, March 27th, I stepped off a curb wrong and rolled my ankle bad enough to create quite a severe break. I’ve spent a week nursing it in bed, being nursed by my fiance and my kids. And a lot of the time crying over ease lost, difficulties created, and disappointments made. Tomorrow, April 3rd, I will head into surgery, letting the doctor put a plate and some screws in my ankle, and spend a few days sleeping off the anesthetic and drugs. Anxiety causes more tears than the pain does. I’m sure there will be more.

And yet, I sit here after four hours at the doctor’s office, making decisions, and prepping for surgery. I sit here exhausted and afraid. Then my eyes wander over to this snapshot sent to me yesterday. One of twenty something sent to me to show where a gorgeous planter was placed, and how the lights on the barn look at night, the little swing hanging from the giant oak, the red tulips in bloom circling it’s base, the grass lush and green inviting my bare toes. And I am filled beyond reason with peace and gratitude and a joy I cannot express.

No denying this broken ankle is a pain in the ass. But it’s a tiny bump on a well-worn road. I am absolutely thrilled to hear the tender prayers of people who love me, feel the gentle touch of their support, grasp the beautiful words sent to encourage, and thrive in circumstances out of my control, knowing that God brought me here. I once felt so alone, so weak, so unwanted. I’ll take the broken ankle and the surgery. And I’ll hobble over on my crutches, sit gingerly in my ivory gown on this little swing, and praise God for the union with the man I love, a man who utterly adores me, and for the strength of friends who provided such a sacred space.