come and listen

"We'll try to document this light with cameras to our eyes

in an effort to remember what being mended feels like.

we're home sweet home."

[sleeping at last]

I don't know how I could ever feel alone again after that day.

Looking back now, I still get chills all the way through. I still feel the flush of my emotions. I can still feel the feeling like the city paused it's shuffling, its cursing and commotion for a night, stood by and watched, and blessed us.

It snowed on Friday, April 12th. It had been snowing a lot up 'til then, too. My long awaited hopes of a bright, crisp, green, Spring wedding were not fulfilled. But, snow makes things beautiful just as well. It felt perfectly cozy at The Van Dusen Mansion that day, all the richness of wood-carved furniture, more fireplaces than you could ever need, and best friends surrounding was quite enough for me. Not to mention some All Sons and Daughters playing in the background. That was my serenity time. Kip... well, he watched golf and drank beer and played pool. Serenity in a different way, I suppose.

Slipping into my dress, exhaling so that it could zip all the way, chuckling with the girls as Lauren had to reach her hand in and around to find the straps - all sweet, sensory memories of preparing to go see him. We both surprised each other with our outfits for the evening, so naturally there was squealing and high-pitched "you-look-so-beautiful"s. That's possibly my favorite part of our video - the volume of seeing each other. No tears, just joyful, minnie mouse voices.

And thus commenced so many photos that I don't know how we kept our facial muscles going for ALL of them. Our friend Kendra is pretty darn good at what she does. 

It's a strange thing to have an event be all about you. Birthday parties as a kid are the closest things to that kind of spotlighted celebration for me. It was beautifully overwhelming. 

Because of our personal preferences of venue and the style of ceremony we desired, we had only 60-ish people in the room with us while we were wed. Some of these chosen ones were people we had been journeying with for years, and some were new friends with whom we now share such rich, authentic, Minneapolis-community. 

We kicked off the evening with words. Not surprising, right? Stefan & Meredith, a dynamic duo, welcomed the guests downstairs & Meredith read this. And, Stefan used the word "story" without me even asking him to. 

We were hiding on the second level so we could hear their words, then we scurried upstairs before the herding ensued. I've never been one for a grand entrance, so we decided to both be in the ballroom when our friends and family came upstairs: waiting for them, inviting and welcoming them in our own way. We pretty much created an experience that we would love to have at a wedding ... surprise, mystery, not just watching but being intimately involved in such a grand event as two becoming one.

Our friends Chris, Kayla and Nathaniel blew our minds with their harmonies and instrumental genius. We had requested Your Love is All Around and Crags and Clay, both intended to still us in those moments and remind us that this is holy. Our love is holy. We aren't just fancily dressed for a great party, but we are indeed "fearfully and wonderfully and beautifully made," and He is going to keep making beautiful things out of us. 

Together.

In & through community.

The physical beauty of the room itself was breathless, but the blessings spoken over us were out of this world. Literally. Heaven came down for us there in that old house. There was yielding and loving and worship. Truth, vulnerability, Ashley speaking Brene's words and Drew's call and response prayer-declaration. I wish I could shape that evening in better fitting prose, but I'm not sure that's possible. It was a "you had to be there" night. And I do wish everyone could have been there!

The kiss was, well, suffocatingly wonderful. My husband is very expressive.
JOY.

I have so many perfect visual memories of this time. We enjoyed a cocktail hour with our ceremony group, then went over to the big party. It was a better party than I could have ever imagined or planned; a true celebration that even involved a black out. I don't think it was our fault, but I'd like to think that we were having THAT much fun.

So here we are.
We are the Joneses.

It's been a hell of a journey thus far, and it will forever be. I am seeking peace in that. Peace that He's called us to more, and marriage is part of the more for me. It's a movement towards more than myself, more than my pain and my joy and my pleasure and my cute house. It's somehow all about Him, even here between these two bodies, interlaced in these ringed fingers. There's blood and tears and life and death here. And I'm making peace with a beauty that my soul has never known. It's hard. And it's good. I'm beginning to understand that little things can cause me to crumble, and yet even these are pieces of his glory. All of this is, and I am continuously invited into a flow of life and spirit that is both infinitely greater than my humanity and humbly part of it. As David Whyte says ...

... we are all preparing for that abrupt waking, and that calling and that moment when we have to say yes. Except it will not come so grandly or so biblically, but more subtly and intimately in the face of the one you know you have to love.

Cheers.



and maybe one more quote.

"I send you out to the spot where you are, right now. You are right where you belong. You have everything you need to begin.
And we will walk it out together, you and me."

-sarah bessey-