Spring. Just as many of the plants sprouting new life I feel like I am as well. I love that Steve and I got married in the spring, even though on April 20th there were flurries and we had to cut our photo shoot short due to the fact it was freezing! Now we're back from our honeymoon and while we start to set up our new home all the little buds are popping up everywhere. It feels like life is synchronized right now, or at least harmonized, like some beautiful orchestra.
Until April 20th I feel like I've had my head to the ground. I've been so focused on completing the details of the wedding that it wasn't until that beautiful day I could look up and be amazed. Amazed at what God has done in my life and Steve's. The wedding felt like the climax of not only all the planning but also our lives until this point. I think about all the different ways our lives could have gone but didn't. Its marvelous at how God providentially orchestrated our lives.
One person I didn't mention in my speech at the end of the wedding was my mother. Part of me just wasn't up for crying and all the emotion that would follow. I had cried many many times in the days leading up to the wedding due to my mother not being present for the planning but most importantly the big day.
One of the major lessons she taught me was to trust in the sovereignty and providence of God. Her life alone was an example of God's sovereign providence. I learned a lot from how she lived in freedom and joy in her Saviour. I saw this in the way she jogged every morning, how she served tirelessly at church, how she shoveled snow in -30 C weather (and really enjoyed it...she actually loved shoveling) , the way she cheered for me and Lauren on our various sports teams, the way she loved and showed patience to my Dad...
When she passed away from cancer in 2005, she never complained about God's plan for her life. She was only thankful. I remember our last conversation with each other she said she was at peace with dying but just sad she couldn't be there for my wedding and other big life events. She loved love and it was her marriage to my Dad that I fondly look back on. I often use it as a standard for how a Godly marriage should look. She was a beautiful, Godly, happy, hard-working and thankful Mom. I didn't want to give the impression that I had forgot her on April 20th. I couldn't stop thinking about her.
I could picture what she would've been like: laughing, poking fun at our friends Bill and Don, checking to see if I needed anything, smiling at Lauren, loving the food (she always loved food) and then just hanging out with Dad and her sister, Auntie Kathy..I think she would have loved the outdoorsiness of the reception hall and all the music. She probably would have played the piano and sang a song as well....but she wasn't there. She was somewhere far greater and better. To say I wanted her to be at the wedding would be purely selfish...I know she is enjoying her Saviour now and experiencing what this earthly marriage is just a picture of.
I am so thankful for my Mother, Faith. God blessed me with almost 18 years of her influence on my life and God used her mightily to build many people's love and faith in Him.
It's so exciting to now be sitting in my new home with my husband Steve. A fresh start and a chance to carry on Faith Dibbley's legacy in trusting The Lord and loving her family.
