The Restoration Tour

Today I am simply in awe, and marveling at what God has done in our marriage.  To use a worn out cliché, “What a difference a year makes!”  Even as I sit here typing, with my wife curled up on the couch across the room, I understand what a miracle this is.  There are things I haven’t shared in this blog, either because they are outside the scope of what I am trying to do here, or too private and personal to put on the web for all to read, but I know in the deepest part of my heart that this is a gift I will never take for granted.

Today we ran some errands to try to find some last-minute things for our ceremony, which is now only a week away.  Next Saturday, we will renew our vows in a way that will probably only make sense to us, but this is our marriage, and we are the only ones who will ever really know what it means.  To paraphrase Alice in the new Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, “This is our path, and we will decide where it goes.”

The path that we often take while running or cycling is called the South Creek Trail, and it passes through a place called Nathaniel Greene Park.  It’s a very beautiful park and it has become quite meaningful to us, since fitness was one of the only things that we shared during our separation. It has continued to be a place we often find ourselves, and it is the site we chose for our renewal ceremony.

On the back side of the man-made lake, there are a series of playgrounds/picnic areas, and one of them has a cement table and chairs that are painted to look like colorful mushrooms.  We were playing there one day (yes, after our runs/rides, we sometimes play on the playgrounds) and the inspiration hit us.  It was as if we were sitting in wonderland.  My wife had already bought a huge, sparkly, orange dress to wear just for the fun of it, and there the idea of using the Mad Hatter’s tea party as the theme for our ceremony was birthed.

You see, this is not going to be a wedding.  This is going to be a celebration.  No one will give away the bride, and no minister will need to sign a marriage license, because we are already married.  We will say vows, which we are writing ourselves, and people will speak, but they will be a few people who were close enough to the situation to know and appreciate what this means.  We have also chosen a few songs that became important and meaningful to us during this year of restoration.

So there will be wedding-like elements, but without the tradition and formality of a wedding.  The people who speak will be people who stood firm with us when all seemed lost.  The songs that are played will be songs whose lyrics touch the heart of who we are and where we’ve been.  And the vows are necessary to replace the ones we have broken.

Mostly it is to be a party to celebrate our love with the people who are closest to us and understand how much this means.  Likewise, it is to be the culminating event of the restoration tour.  The entire past year has been leading to this.  All of the places we’ve been, the things we’ve shared and worked through, the tears we’ve cried, and the joys we’ve discovered will come together, and we will demonstrate, before God and those who gather to witness, that we choose each another again, both now and for always.