March 2011
I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.
Hosea 2:19
The flowers were glowing on the tables. There was champagne in the fridge. The entire floor smelled of spicy pork chops and baked potatoes. I had just put the finishing touches on the swath of fabric wrapped around the stair railing.
It started raining, softly at first and then heavily. The guests started arriving, milling around, unsure whether to sit or stand. The groom checked his phone again. The bride still didn’t come.
For over six months, Mache and I had been counseling a couple who wanted to get married. She was a friend of mine who used to work in the brothels. The groom had met her there, but wanted to rescue her from that life, swing her onto his white horse and leave the past behind. Mache and I had been meeting with them to talk with them about finances, in-laws, kids and balance. And also about Christ, how no matter what you think you know about marriage, Christ is the one that will redeem it and inject it with grace when nothing else seems to be working.
When they ran into some resistance from the groom’s family, they decided to move the wedding up and have a small private ceremony. Mache and I would act as “godparents”, which in Bolivian culture means we help pay for the wedding and act as counselors and moral authorities in their future marriage. So I happily helped plan the small wedding, conspiring with the bride over all the delicate details of dining and guest list and decoration.
Two hours before the ceremony I received a confused call from the bride’s sister, announcing that the wedding was cancelled. The couple had disagreed about whether one of the groom’s sisters should be invited to the wedding, but now the groom was frantically calling to apologize and the bride wouldn’t answer her phone. For the next three hours, Mache and I ran around the city, trying to find the bride, comfort the groom, and talk some sense into the bride’s hyper-protective sisters.
Eventually we all ended up back at the wedding site, hoping beyond hope that the bride would suddenly show up. We waited while the groom’s family filed in, and finally had to announce that there would be no wedding that night.
If you’ve never been involved in this particular form of tragedy, I’ve got to tell you that there is nothing sadder than a wedding that doesn’t happen. Not even a funeral can match it. At least with a funeral, there is the understanding that death will come to all of us, at some point. But a wedding is supposed to show the opposite, a symbolic act of a stubborn refusals to accept death’s dominance. But when a marriage wilts before it ever happens, when the guests sit around eating the cake and crying…I had to wonder if I would ever witness anything sadder in my life.
Of course, it all reminds me of Gomer, how she ran away from home over and over again. And of course it reminds of me of Christ, how his bride tends to betry him with defiant consistency. But that means that the story isn’t over yet. Because Hosea kept dragging Gomer home, the way Christ drags us home. Whether there’s a home in store for this flightly bride or not, she is being pursued relentlessly. What happens next is up to her.
Love,
Cara Strauss Contreras