Weddings: 'Tis The Season

I have a love-hate thing for weddings. On the one hand, I dread them because they nag me like a thorn that I'm still single. And if there's any lapse of awareness of my single status, then I am soon corralled into a mob of chest-beating dudes competing for a flying garter belt. And yet there's a part of me that delights in weddings because they silence the skeptic within me and remind me that fairy tale love stories are absolutely true. That the magic of God-breathed love still peeks into the darkest of worlds. It reminds me that there is more to life than what I often live for, and much more to savor than what I often see just in front of me. Weddings are always proof positive that there are many more miracles to be encountered in my life. So, if there is anything to celebrate with extravagant dining and dancing, it is surely love finding love.

Yesterday, two amazing people became one. On the outside looking in, it seems like tying the knot is the closest thing to being born again. I know that life doesn't start when you're married, but it certainly seems to redefine life itself. To go down that road with someone is to embark into sheer mystery. It's a unique road that nobody has ever travailed, because no person is the same. And what's more, no combination of two people are ever the same. You two are daring to write a story that's never been written and will never be erased. For us who are single, we wonder what chapter of our love story we are currently living in. Every love story begins with singleness. It's not the prequel, it's an intricate part of the love story itself. It establishes the plot which makes for an epic romance in the end.

It's always amazing to me that it takes years and years for someone to arrive at her wedding ceremony and then it's over within a matter of minutes. I always wonder what is pouring through the couple's minds in those fleeting moments. Me being the skeptic, I find myself looking for signs of doubt or disappointment, but all I see is a deluge of blushing joy with a little terror. I wonder if those moments are like dying, in that a person's whole life flashes before his eyes in perfect clarity. Perhaps, the ghost of the past shows up at that wedding altar and smiles with a smug look of accomplishment. I'm sure that in that moment, looking back on your life's script is like discovering gravity, it was there all along and yet now it makes more sense.

The thing about running after love is that you never know if you're running in the right direction. It's very elusive. I can't think of anything more elusive. And I can't think of a better reason to pray. If God is love, then He no doubt has it all figured out in a way that I don't. I don't want to force something that isn't meant to be because something always breaks when I try to force anything. I don't think it's really a miracle for two people to get married just because they're bored of being single. But it's certainly miraculous for someone to get married because they found that one person in the world that makes them want to live life in a whole new way. That's my prayer, both for me and the girl I will marry. It is always weighty to realize that my prayers and decisions about my love life are affecting atleast one other person somewhere in this world.

Not too long ago, if you would have asked me what kind of a girl I'm looking for, then most likely I would have listed off a set of noble qualities. But now I realize that it goes deeper than that and that I'm actually hoping for that acute feeling of finally being at home with someone. A glass slipper moment. Indeed, love is an ocean and God is my breeze, and someday this weathered ship will happily crash into another that has been flying the same flag as mine through sunshine and storm for all of these years.