I walked myself down the makeshift aisle of baby’s breath in front of the city park’s lake, grasping the bouquet of daisies, white ranunculus and asters. Peter looked as handsome as ever in his suit with a wine-colored shirt, white tie and white pocket square. I couldn’t stop beaming. “I am getting married!” I rejoiced internally. “The moment is here!”
And, yet, I also wanted to weep. Sob. Ugly cry.
Our nieces and nephews hadn’t stolen the show as our precious flower girls and adorable ring bearers.
My Dad wasn’t escorting me down the aisle with tears in his eyes. My Mom didn’t button my dress and adjust my ivory veil to make my hair frame my face just-so.
Our dearest friends and siblings weren’t waiting at the end of the aisle to stand with us as we covenanted before God.
I didn’t have a celebration to look forward to later that night with 133 of our closest friends and family. No specially-planned dinner. No dancing. No toasts.
Yes, we were getting married, and hallelujah! There was so, so much to celebrate. But there was simultaneously much to mourn.
Grief and gratitude
The two weeks leading up to our March 22 wedding were fraught with rapid, daily developments in our new pandemic reality.
Six days before our wedding, we requested that our families and friends not travel to Orlando. We requested they stay home, stay healthy and watch from a livestream. We postponed the entire wedding and reception, and we decided to have a tiny makeshift ceremony in a city park.
Peter and I were heartbroken. It’s not that we didn’t want our family and our friends to be with us. We simply needed to be responsible.
It’s been seven weeks since our wedding, and it has been a season of holding the tension of grief and gratitude before the Lord.
I’m grateful for our Orlando-based wedding party who pulled off our makeshift wedding marvelously. I’m grateful we could live stream our wedding for our family and friends. I’m grateful I get to walk through this pandemic with Peter, my husband, who is a good and perfect gift from God.
But, I’m grieving that our nearest and dearest weren’t here physically to witness and celebrate the start of our marriage. I’m grieving that we can’t even celebrate now with our people in person. I’m aching to be in this new season in relationship with others.
Looking ahead into the unknown
As I look ahead, I find myself wanting to know what’s coming and when. I want to know when the things that I’m grieving so acutely will be resolved, when the relational connections that I’m aching for will be realized.
When will I see my family and embrace them as a married woman? When can I let my 9-year-old niece try on my veil? When can my parents hug Peter and welcome him as their son-in-law? When can I sit with some girlfriends, laughing and crying and throwing back some LaCroix as we process our lives and marriages together?
I don’t know.
That’s the painful truth. I just don’t know. And life is chock full of so many “I don’t know” situations right now that I find myself desperately clawing for something I can know.
I had a biopsy done on my nose recently for possible skin cancer, and the doctor said I would have the results in less than two weeks. “Less than two weeks?!” My heart sang because I finally had a definite, dependable timetable for something. (The test came back benign, hallelujah.)
But, as for the longings of my heart and even the state of the world as I know it, there’s no definite timetable. I don’t know what tomorrow will look like, let alone three months or three years from now. I don’t know what life will be like for me, for my family, for my church body, for this nation, for the world. And I don’t like that. The unknown is unsettling.
To whom would I go?
I don’t know about you but, in the face of unknowns, I tend to shift my heart away from God. If I’m honest, I disengage with God more often than I would like you to know. Maybe it’s for a few days, for an hour, for several minutes. Cold shoulder, hard heart. “God, if You’re not going to give me the answers and timetable that I want, then I definitely don’t want You.”
I’m reminded of the words of Peter. In John 6, Jesus gives a hard teaching, and a lot of His followers leave Him. Jesus turns to His 12 disciples and asks if they too will leave Him. But, Peter, bless him. Peter says, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.”
I’ve asked myself where, with my aches and the unknowns, can I go? Where can I turn? I can’t turn to the comfort of relationships because I physically can’t meet with anyone. I can’t turn to the comfort of future plans because I literally don’t know what tomorrow holds. I can’t turn to the comfort of Twistee Treat because it’s not worth the risk (or calories) to daily venture out and drown my sorrows in soft serve. I can’t turn to myself because I know the depths of my own brokenness enough to know that I’m woefully insufficient on my own.
To whom can I turn but God?
Let me be clear. In my hurt, I don’t want to turn to God. I don’t want to be dependent on Him. I don’t want to surrender to Him. But, I’m desperate. And in desperation, I am choosing to turn to Him not because it feels good. I am choosing to turn to Him because nothing else is an option.
Raw emotions and all
Sometimes I feel like if I’m going to choose to turn to God and engage my heart with Him, I need to clean my feelings up, put on my Sunday best and have a presentable heart. I hear, “Don’t bring your sorrow before Him. He doesn’t want it.”
But, I’m comforted by so many of the Psalms (and I was thrilled this is our current sermon series). I’m comforted to read the cries of lament. The language of heartache. The crying out to God. The raw emotions. Notice that the psalmists don’t try to explain their ache with apologies and shame saying, “God, I’m sorry I feel alone and abandoned. I shouldn’t feel this way. If I really trusted you, I wouldn’t hurt right now.” No. The psalmists feel. And they bravely move toward God in their pain, to which they put such beautiful and broken language.
And so I’ve been trying to bring my heart before God, to wrestle with Him, to invite Him in. When I journal out my prayers each day, it’s not very pretty. Here’s some of what I wrote on April 30:
“I find myself not wanting to hope for the future, not wanting to look forward to when we’ve postponed our wedding celebration next year, not wanting to plan to see my family because I’m afraid. I’m afraid that You’ll take away something good, something wonderful that I had planned for, hoped for, longed for. I don’t want my heart to be deadened to hope, but I don’t want to be heartbroken again. I’m grateful I can be real with You. I’m still angry that we didn’t have our wedding how we planned. I’m angry we haven’t been able to be married around nearest and dearest. Being afraid to plan and hope is probably self-protection. And I know I need You in that. My heart feels messy… I’m just sad. I don’t want to need You in this process. I just want to be apart from You, to not invite you into these feelings. I feel a little betrayed. And yet I’m comforted that you aren’t surprised by this pandemic. Lord, please make my heart tender toward You. You know it’s not tender right now. My heart is sad, aching, calloused.”
Raw, honest, not pretty. But, it’s engaging with Him, it’s inviting Him in.
This isn’t my first “faith in the midst of crisis” rodeo. I know from crises of the past that some days I simply don’t have the words. Some days I simply don’t have the capacity to show up and to give language to the depths of what I’m feeling. Some days I simply don’t have the energy to go there quite so deeply with God.
On those days, I can choose between the cold shoulder/hard heart combo or offering God the little I muster. And on the days I choose to offer what little I can muster, my prayers often simply sound like, “God, please help me to rest in You today. Please help me to trust You for tomorrow. I’m struggling. I can’t do this on my own.”
Regardless of if I have many words or few, I know that eventually God will give resolution to my ache. And like so many Psalms of lament, I’ll be able to reaffirm who God is, how incredible He is. I will look back at this season and say, “Wow. God, I see Your faithfulness and goodness.” But right now, I’m in the middle of wrestling with Him. I’m in process. And that’s OK. I’m giving myself permission to lament. And in good time I will be renewed.
In this season
In this season, I pray God would help us to face both our grief and our gratitude, to gaze ahead into the unknown, which is frighteningly out of our control. I pray God would help us to engage with Him, to open our hurting hearts to Him, to have language for our lament and to choose to move toward Him. Where else can we go? And I pray we would be able to look back on this season, saying, “Oh, what a season when I engaged my aching heart with God and when I eventually saw God’s goodness and faithfulness.”
God, please help us to rest in You today. And, please help us to trust You for tomorrow. We can’t do this on our own.
Katie and her husband, Peter, have been married for just seven weeks. Katie started attending Lake Baldwin Church this fall when it became clear she and Peter didn't want to worship apart from each other on Sundays.
By day, Katie is a writer for a non-profit organization. By night, she's a craft ninja. She loves nature, the nations, creating and journaling. She and Peter like to spend time together baking, playing board games and going on dog walks with Wilbur, their 6-year-old Brittany Spaniel.
Our own stories are powerful, and even more so once shared. As Fred Rogers put it, "never underestimate the impact that your mere existence can have on another human being."
Here with Voices, you'll have the chance to read stories from various members of our church family, each chronicling what it feels and looks like now that so many things have changed. If you’d like to comment or learn more about this series, you can reach out to us at hello@lakebaldwinchurch.com.