biblical worldviewing

At some point or another, every husband (or fiance) must feel the way I did when I saw my fiancee, Sarah, at the airport after being apart from her for almost 3 months. It was a little bit before we got engaged, but we were courting and knew we going to be married. Now for the sorrowful part of the story (and the one that still brings up a little bit of argument between us). Sarah had already secured a job at a local summer camp as a first aid provider/nurse’s assistant for the most part of the summer. Therefore, in my head, I thought, “gee, I guess Sarah and I won’t really get to be together very much this summer anyway… and you know it would be kind of cool to go off somewhere far away and get a job for the summer…” And so I started looking for a job as a camp counselor in another state, and the offers poured in! I posted my resume on a camp staff website, and I was getting calls every day from places like Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and even Catalina Island, Los Angeles. So I headed to Texas and told her, “oh Sarah, it’s just for the summer. It will be over before you even know it, and you can have tons of fun at camp if you just try.” I should have known better.

Even though the Lord used this past summer in so many ways to stretch and strengthen, it was a hard one for both of us–but as hard as it was for me, it was probably 900 times harder for Sarah. She counted the days (from the very first one). She cried herself to sleep and woke up feeling like crying. She longed to be back with me again. You know, I think, in many ways, Sarah was always raised with the idea of her being someone’s good wife ever-present in her rearing. Being a godly wife is a central purpose for her life and something prepared for (either explicitly or implicitly) since she was very young! I’m sure many times she has longed to fulfill that purpose, and so who can blame her for being anxious and eager, and for being overwhelmed by being so close to being married, but still having to wait?

So after the hardest summer of either of our lives, it was nearing the time for me to come home. In the days leading up to the reunion, excitement was mounting! On the phone, I could hear anticipation and relief in Sarah’s voice that this trial was coming to an end, and she was devising detailed plans for the reunion. As a matter of fact, she had chosen to have a small outpatient surgery scheduled during the middle of the summer (which made it impossible for her to go to the beach with her family when they went during that same week) because the only other available time for the procedure was a few days before I would come home. She said she didn’t want to be fragile when I first came back. That crazy girl!

She bought a new dress, she did her hair the way I like, and met her good friends at Starbucks to chat before I came. She said if she didn’t meet them there first, she would have gone crazy waiting by herself at the airport and probably would have come like 5 hours early or something! I called her from Houston right before the plane took off. Then, after landing in Raleigh, I was trying to call her from the hall in the airport but my phone was dead! Instead of just going on and surprising her, I thought it was worth teasing her just a little bit more by plugging my phone into the wall and saying I would be coming down to the baggage claim in just another minute, and that I loved her truly. She was so excited! It had been so long since we were together that both of us had kind of forgotten exactly what it felt like to be together, and honestly, I think we were even a bit nervous. Would it really be the same as it used to be?

I rounded the corner, went through some doors, and ahead was an escalator going down, down to where she was waiting. Before stepping on the escalator, I peeked over the railing beside it and had a view down to the ground floor. There, looking down I tried to find her, but my view was blocked by the lower ceiling. Then I spotted a pair of sandaled feet and a dress just like the one Sarah described, but nothing higher than the knees. I knew it was her! I stepped on the elevator and watched those feet as I came down, and as the ceiling moved up relative to me, I saw legs, waist, shoulders and then the face of the one I love! I was still twice as high as she was and looking down, she looked like a little girl. She had the sappiest smile, a glowing face and the most sparkling, hopeful eyes–but most beautiful of all, and this I will never forget, she was clasping her hands together in front of her and literally shaking from head to toe with nervousness, expectation, but mostly joy. I will never, never forget what she looked like standing there because it touches me so deeply that this amazing girl would actually shake with joy over me. I walked up to her, stood in front of her for about 3 seconds just looking at her and smiling, then put my arms around her neck and kissed her awkwardly but finally! Later I found out her friends were off to the side with a video camera, but I didn’t care.

I can only wonder if what I felt was a tiny portion of the way Christ himself will feel and take glory in: the anticipation and joy his spotless bride, the Church, will express when he finally presents her to himself. His return will delight her infinitely more than my return delighted Sarah, but I think that through my relationship with Sarah I have barely started to grasp the heavenly realities of the love between the Lord Jesus and his Bride the Church. Thank the Lord for the gift of marriage! What a mysterious, holy expression of our God.

Happy Valentine’s day, princess!