Chapter 6

Our house is finished and we have the occupancy permit! Chad and I wander through the rooms in awe. Mom and Dad have been out here with us. Today is Saturday and we have friends coming to paint. Chad and I have picked the paint and put out drop cloths and gathered brushes, trays, and rollers. Our bedroom will be painted the same color as our bedroom at Mom and Dad's. We both love that color and that room has special meaning to us. The most difficult decision was furniture for our bedroom. We have looked and looked but we like what we have been using for the last year. Mom and Dad have offered all of it to us with the sheets and extra mattress pads.

Dora sealed it. She said, "Britt, Chad, it's like Mitch's bed and furniture. We started with it and we will keep it. It's too important and having that familiar bed and bedroom furniture will be good as you get to know each other in a new way."

On Wednesday before our marriage, we brought the furniture over and set it up. By then, most of our friends knew we were sleeping together anyway. We only kept enough clothes to take care of our needs until Saturday night when we would lock ourselves in for our honeymoon!

Thursday, we shopped our menu and picked up other things and filled the cupboards and refrigerator. Dad said, "I thought you would just live on love for the week!" We both gave him raspberries!

We went home Thursday night tired. We haven't "baptized" our new home yet. It is to be ready and virginal for us Saturday night.

Friday was a flurry of fittings and final preparations for the wedding tomorrow. Chad and I were looking forward to it, as was everyone we saw for the last few weeks. Grandmother Thornton was almost as anxious as we. We had the church and the community hall decorated ... Chad and I were ready. We had our vows memorized and were anxious to go to our bastion of privacy, our new home. We would drive in Chad's car sitting close. After we changed, we would wear our engagement clothes. As soon as we got away from the parking lot, that skirt was going to be at my waist!

[Chad] I'm standing at the altar with Pastor Bob on one side and Toby on the other. He will be Tobias later but, right now, he's my boyhood friend and best man, Toby. Then the music swelled and Dad came forward with a lovely vision in white on his arm. As they came nest to Mom, Britt reached for her and pulled her to walk the rest of the way. Mom was ready. Pastor Bob knew this would happen because we had warned him. No one else knew.

Pastor Bob said, "God is love, and those who abide in His love, abide in God, and God abides in them. This is the day the Lord has prepared and made since before the beginning of time."

Pastor Bob paused. Then he said, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in God's house to witness and to celebrate the marriage of Brittany Stevens and Chad Arnold and to ask God to bless them so that they may be strengthened for their life as one. We are called to rejoice in their happiness, and find in their love a reason to renew our own commitments.

God gave us marriage for the full expression of love between a man and a woman so that the husband and wife may cherish and delight in one another; comfort and help each other in sickness, trouble and sorrow; provide for each other in temporal things; pray for and encourage each other in their Christian life; and live together faithfully all the length of their days."

He stopped and smiled at the four of us standing before him. "Let us pray. Almighty God, who is present in all happiness, and whose favor has shown upon this couple: We ask You to be present with us, Your servants, as we witness this couple's formal joining in holy wedlock. They come to covenant with You. As You have brought them together by Your providence, sanctify them by your Spirit, giving them a new frame of heart fit for their new estate; enrich them with all grace, whereby they may enjoy the comforts, undergo the cares, endure the trials, and perform the duties of life together, under Your guidance and protection; through Jesus Christ we pray.

"Amen." The congregation echoed him.

Jan stepped forward and sang, Amazing Grace" in her beautiful voice. No one knew of her vocal ability but Tobias. We talked with the two of them and she agreed to sing at our wedding. She had grinned and said, "I do owe you for introducing Tobias and me." It was beautiful. Many people had tears in their eyes listening to her. She stepped back into place.

I stepped forward. "I am reading from Ephesians, chapter five, verses twenty-five through thirty-one.

"'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.'"

Britt stepped forward. "I am reading from Ephesians, chapter five, verses twenty-one through twenty-four.

"'Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.'"

She paused. "Chad, my beautiful man, will you have me to be your wife, and will you promise your life to me in all love and honor, in all duty and service, in all faith and tenderness, to live with me, to cherish me, according to the ordinance of God, in the holy bond of marriage?"

I said, "Always, ladylove." There was almost a gasp from everyone.

I said, "Britt, ladylove, will you have me to be your husband, and will you promise your life to me, in all love and honor, in all duty and service, in all faith and tenderness, to live with me, and to cherish me, according to the ordinance of God, in the holy bond of marriage?"

"Yes, my beautiful man."

Pastor Bob said, " Who gives this man and this woman to be married?"

Mom and Dad said loudly, "We give them to each other with our love and blessing."

Dad put Britt's hand in mine and took Mom's arm. They went back to sit down

There was a collective "Ah!" from the congregation.

Pastor Bob continued. "Marriage is not something that any two people invent, or construct by themselves. It takes a far wider community of family and friends. Each of you was invited here today because you are a part of that community. Therefore, having heard Brittany and Chad state their intentions to each other and to God in this service of matrimony, do you, pledge to support their union and to strengthen their lives together, to speak the truth to them in love, and with them to seek a life of love for others?"

The entire congregations stood and said, "Yes!"

Pastor Bob said, "Many of you have watched this young couple as they have grown in their love and devotion to each other and as they have reached out to others and blessed them. They have proven inseparable and we will confirm the state that has existed between them as their witnesses to their love and their pledges to one another."