These times are so uncertain.
There’s a yearning undefined,
And people filled with rage.
We all need a little tenderness.
How can love survive, in such a graceless age?

–Don Henley, lyrics: The Heart of the Matter
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Eight years ago, a small crowd of guests gathered at a beautiful little wedding chapel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Quaint, cute, rustic and almost impossibly small, the chapel sat nestled in the remote and wooded hills a few miles outside of town.

They had decided this would be the simplest way. To get married. Leave town, tell their friends and family, and let come who may. Rent a chapel, rent the preacher. No fuss, no hassle, no six months of all the strain and stress and planning almost universally associated with weddings.

They were both independent. Had lived on their own. He was a bit older. Both were transplants in the area where they lived. People would have to travel anyway to get there. Besides, neither of their sets of parents would attend their wedding. That made the decision easier. Get out of town. Get it done. Then return.

And so the plans were made. And the date set. Friday, August 4, 2000. Twenty days before his 39th birthday. She located the chapel and made the calls. Planned the details. He shuffled about and tried to stay out of the way, emerging when needed, clutching his credit card to make the necessary reservations.

The date approached. Their excitement grew. Especially hers. He was more even-keeled, stoic. He had been comfortable on his own. He’d always figured he wouldn’t marry until he met that one exceptional woman. If she never came, he wouldn’t worry about it. He was pretty happy as he was.

Then he met her. And they hit it off. Had a lot in common. Both had emerged from plain backgrounds, and all the drama associated with such a journey. Both possessed that unquantifiable inner strength needed to really break away. And both had.

Less than a year after they met, he proposed. Asked her to marry him. She said yes.

They packed her car and headed out the day before the wedding. Drove south. After a full day’s drive, they arrived in Tennessee. And the house rented by his brother and nephews for the occasion. A great party ensued, with much celebration.

The wedding day dawned. Beautiful, clear, cloudless. They rushed about in final preparation. Drove to the courthouse and picked up their marriage license. Back to the house. Then to the chapel. The service would be at four that afternoon.

They met the pastor, a slight elderly man with a shock of gray hair, dressed in a long black robe. He carefully wrote down their names, and they chose the vows they would use. She then disappeared into her dressing room with her bridesmaids. He would not see her again until she walked the aisle toward him.

The groom retired to his dressing room. Donned a new black suit. New shoes. New shirt. And a new tie, trimmed in black and gold and burgundy. He swore he would never wear the tie again after the wedding, but always keep it as a memento of that day.

Guests arrived and wandered into the little chapel and seated themselves. About eighty in all. His siblings. Her siblings. A few friends. But not their parents. They refused to attend such a worldly affair. Or bless the union. Thereby releasing the equivalent of a curse instead.

And then it was time. The elderly pastor led the groom and his attendants through the little door in the rear of the chapel. The pastor stood behind the podium. The groom to his left, the groomsmen spread to either side.

The music started. Their little nieces walked up first, carrying baskets. Spreading silk flower petals along the aisle. Then the bridesmaids, one by one.

The wedding march. All rose and turned, their eyes glued to the door. And she entered, a vision in white, a wisp of white veiling obscuring her lovely face. Her older brother by her side. They walked up slowly and stood before the pastor.

“Who gives this woman to be married?” he intoned dramatically.

“Her family and I do,” her brother answered almost inaudibly.

She stepped up onto the little platform and faced the groom. They held each other’s hands. Looked into each other’s eyes.

The pastor had performed a thousand such little ceremonies. For people he never saw before or since. With practiced ease, he opened with a prayer, then read a short passage from the love chapter, I Cor. 13. His calm voice rumbled through the tiny chapel. He then turned his attention to the excited, eager couple before him.

He addressed the bride. Love your husband. Meet him at the end of each day with a smile. Comfort and encourage him as a man. The man. Your man. Be true to each other.

And then the groom. Honor and love your wife. Look to her as you did during your courtship days. Let not sorrow cloud her brow or her eyes be dimmed with tears.

They exchanged vows. Slipped the rings on each other’s hands. By the power vested in him by the state of Tennessee, and before God, the pastor pronounced them husband and wife. Together they lit the large unity candle as Michael W. Smith sang her favorite song.

The pastor then presented them to the assembled guests as husband and wife. And they walked out as such. Received accolades and congratulations from their friends. The entire service lasted nineteen minutes.

After the reception, during which everyone was amply fed, a group of their friends escorted them to a nearby nightclub for champagne and dancing. In the glitz of the nightclub lights, they laughed and celebrated with uninhibited exuberance.

As the night hours slipped away, they held each other close and slow-danced across the gleaming hardwood floor in the soft strobing lights. Their futures, their entire lives, lay before them. Together from this day.

They knew they would grow old together. That God’s gentle hand would reach down and touch them, and bless their lives with children. That they would live to see their children grow. That their sons would be as plants grown up in their youth and walk the land, tall and strong and confident. That their daughters would be as corner stones, and bring them great joy and honor.

That they would live lives rich and full of years. Until that inevitable hour when death called one of them away. And separated them.

This they knew. In their hearts.

As they danced the hours away on that enchanted, magical night.
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Earlier this year, I read a book someone gave me. Written by Rob Bell, a pastor who has authored several best sellers. At the end of the final chapter, Rob described a wedding ceremony he conducted years ago in an open pasture one summer day. The simplest of ceremonies, with only a few guests.

Both the bride and the groom had been previously married, and both carried tons of baggage into this one. Rob described how after the ceremony, the couple walked up to the top of a nearby hill. Just the two of them, carrying two white balloons. There they paused, then together released them into the skies. Watched as the balloons floated higher and higher, then disappeared. A symbol of all the crap, all the pain and bad decisions, all the sins from their pasts. Now released forever and carried away. So they could start a new life together.

Rob wrote that the scene is seared forever in his mind. I got a lump in my throat just reading his powerful imagery.

Could it only have been that simple. Of course, it wasn’t. Symbolism alone, however profound, proves little. And means little. A few short years later, the couple’s lives lay in shambles. Their marriage had deteriorated. They separated. Then divorced.

Rob’s conclusion: Life gets messy. It’s risky to take chances.

I concur. It does. And is.

He closed by writing that we can recover from anything. That God can pick up the pieces and mend shattered lives. Can put anything, and anyone, back together. That one should not build walls and close off access to the life that is there for the taking. And the joy. That He wants us to have.

Again, I concur. What he wrote is true. Without any doubt.

This I know. In my head.

But not yet in my heart.