Not My First Time Down the Aisle: Young, Married, Free...

The bridal party lined up.  I was familiar with this routine.  The girls made last minute adjustments to their dresses and dead flowers were plucked from bouquets while the guys made jokes with one another, trying not to laugh too loudly.  The music started.  Amazing Grace.  The girls started sweating…deep breaths all around.  The guys checked with one another once again, “Is my arm over hers or under?  When do we walk?”   I knew the routine.  I had been in the front of the line.  I had been at the end.  I had stood in the middle.  But I had never been last. 

My dad and I stood at the very end of the line, waiting to exit the old farmhouse.  I readjusted my shoes, afraid they could slip off midway down the aisle.  He made small talk, “Look who’s over there.  Did you see that the cousins made it?  Hold it together.”  We walked slowly.  The door closed behind us and we made our way down the porch steps.  My sweet attendant adjusted my dress, and off we went.  My dad gave me away.

There is great anticipation for this moment.  Some girls dream of the day that they will walk down the aisle and others swear they will never do it.  The scale, whether to get married or not, is tipped in the minds of many.  On one side is companionship, a person to love forever.  On the other side lies independence.  As the scale in their minds tip, independence grows, companionship dies.  As companionship dies, independence grows. 

I walked the aisle young.  Three months after my 23^rd birthday.  How could I have made such a life-altering decision at such a young age, or so quickly?  And why? It certainly isn’t a decision to be made lightly.

If I had looked ahead to my wedding day, thinking it would be the first time I would die to myself and live completely for another person, another cause, it would have been far more mystifying.  If it were the first time I surrendered my desires, dreams, and love to another person, it would have been entirely overwhelming.  If I thought it was going to be my first time walking the aisle towards a person I’d trust with my entire life, the aisle would have appeared much longer.  It would have been terrifying.

If independence is viewed as the pleasure to do and say whatever I want, go wherever I choose, and be with whomever I please, then I gave up my independence long ago. 

As I fall more in love with God, the more I recognize my desire to lay aside a lifestyle that is displeasing to him, sometimes begrudgingly and other times in celebration.  I have chosen to live for His mission, above all others.  I have chosen to die to myself and give Him all that I am, even the messy, unrefined, pieces of me, praying that He would change me to be more like Him.  In that way, I have given Him my independence.  And, in a paradoxical way, he has made me FREE. 

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

Romans 6:22

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

2 Corinthians 3:17

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

Galatians 5:13

The freedom that comes from Christ is not something that my marital status can ever change. 

From the moment I felt God drawing me towards Himself, my life has been a walk down the wedding aisle.  I gave my life to Him.  I gave him my brokenness, saying, “Here I am.  Here is all of me.  I am messy and I am yours.  When I am with you, I am whole.”  He viewed me as spotless and white, a bride on her wedding day.

When I vowed to my husband, I promised to demonstrate to him the surrender that I have towards Christ.  He vowed to love me as a demonstration of God’s love for me.  I gave my husband every piece of me, as a representation of the time that I gave my entirety to the God who truly deserves all that I have.

When I gave my life to Christ, my scale with companionship on one side, and independence on the other, disappeared.  It vanished.  He promised me his love for eternity, the closest companionship I could ever experience.  No other companion could compare. He promised me the ultimate freedom from sin and death, making my independence on this Earth, meaningless.

My husband is an amazing man who seeks the Lord above all and loves me with a love that I can hardly fathom, but he is far from perfect.  As am I.  Really, I can be awful.  We are not the perfect pictures of God’s love for us.  However, when I walked towards him on our wedding day, I knew that above all, we live in mission with God.  When we fail, He will not.  We answer to Him before we answer to one another.  We have already walked an aisle and given ourselves to a greater cause. 

There was no need to fear the aisle, for our greatest commitment was not to one another, but to Him.

Photo by Photography By Nicole Lynn