"Becca's here!" I happily announced to my mother as my best friend of eleven years walked into the room. She immediately helped me to move a table, because she is one of the most helpful people in the world. Continuing into the evening, we chatted about the best way to tie bows, what kind of jewelry we like the best, how my wedding had taken on an "earthy" ambience, and all those sorts of things best friends simply must talk about when one of them is getting married in three days. This time, it's me.
I recieved several phone calls today and only accepted one, from my fiancee himself. He'd just learned about a medical emergency in his family. We paniced. We freaked out. Then we realized that life will go on, we can still get married though it may not be the most ideal circumstances for a wedding. And I remember what one of my bosses told me in his semi-thick Indian accent that I found so hard to understand when we first met, "In the end it's about you and him. You do what you can, but the other people don't matter."
I've been thinking about all the different advice I've been given about marriage, including that. Still, the best is a piece of advice from a woman I barely knew that I met at a music festival a few years ago, before I had met Emi. In a canded and spirited conversation about marriage, she told my sister, my best friend, and I, "Marriage makes you realize what a terrible person you are," she laughed and explained that she never realized how selfish she was until she had to put her husband before herself. What she said seemed sensible at the time. Nonetheless, it has taken on a new meaning lately as Emi explores what it means to die to himself and gives more and more of his time and energy to our relationship. The more he invests his life in me, the more I realize how in the same way I need to return that type of love to him. I'm naturally a generous person - giving sounds easy to me. However, I'm also a very independant person and find it difficult, often, to give up my own will for his. Yet God hasn't given up on me.
In three days, I walk down an aisle overflowing with flower petals (I keep buying more...), and pledge my life to the most incredible man in the world. Every day after that, I'll learn a little more about what a terrible person I am, and what a gracious and forgiving God who is leading me.
Here's to many adventures. And bows.
