My Wedding Miracle- Part 2

If you missed the first part of the story, click on over here so that you don't miss a detail!

It was a week before my wedding when the rain started. And this rain was no ordinary late summer Colorado monsoon. This rain was coming down all day, causing floods, making news, and breaking state records. Normally we would be rejoicing in a record breaking week of rain, but for this bride expecting to walk down an outside aisle, the rain was causing some pretty major stress. 

I obsessively checked the Weather Channel app on my phone that predicted weather 10 days in advance, and as September 14th neared, reports consistently showed an 80% chance of rain that day. 

The Wednesday before my wedding (the wedding was on a Saturday), I was checking the weather (yet again) when I felt God whisper to me, 

"Sarah, you're trusting the men who predict the weather, more than you're trusting the man who creates the weather." 

The whisper stopped me mid-click as I realized God was right (as He always is). I was trusting man's predictions over God's perfect sovereignty, and I knew that God had planned September 14th to be my wedding day (click here to read the first part of this story). This whisper and the assurance that September 14th was a day chosen by God, allowed me to have peace in the days leading up to the wedding, as the rainfall continued to break records. 

It rained through the rehearsal dinner and poured outside the night before the wedding as I gifted my purity pledge card to Alex before we parted ways for our last night as singles. Leading up until this point, everyone had been asking what our backup plan was for the ceremony (which was to be outside; reception was inside). I responded each and every time, "Our backup plan is to pray really hard." This answer was less than satisfactory to many people but I refused to seriously think through any serious backup plans (mostly because we had no good options).

(Giving gifts to all the people involved in the wedding at our rehearsal dinner. Yes, Coors Lite is the best kind of gift).

The morning of September 14th dawned bright and... cloudy. My girls and I met at the hair salon at 8AM and I truly enjoyed the next few hours of getting my hair did, makeup done, and sipping on Durango Joe's coffee while forcing myself to eat a breakfast burrito. Excitement for me = not hungry, so my ladies were forcing me to eat all day.

The girls and I piled in two cars for the hour drive up to Silverton just as it started raining. It rained the entire way up and continued raining as we had lunch and finished getting ready at a little house that some friends had lent us. Thankfully no one asked me what my backup plan was that morning because my answer was the same, and I was about one person away from killing really flipping out on the next person who asked me what my backup plan was.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous at all the morning of my wedding. I definitely had some wedding jitters, but I feel like they were mostly related to the fact that I was getting.married. (and could hardly believe it myself!) 

At one point, however, the emotion of the day (worried about the rain, nervous and excited about getting married, nervous that there was going to be 200 people watching me) caught up to me and I went downstairs to where my aunt, cousin, and mom were finishing the flower bouquets. 

I walked in the room and started crying immediately. My mom walked over, prayed over me, and fifteen minutes later I felt much better having let out some of the emotions that I was feeling in a good cry.

I slipped on my dress, had my precious Grandma fasten my pearl necklace and then went downstairs so my Dad could see. 

Alex and I then met and exchanged letters and prayed together (without seeing each other!). It was  1:30 PM (wedding was set to start at 2 PM), and it was still drizzling, but seemed as though it was slowing down. I later found out that around 1:45PM the rain had mostly stopped and some family members furiously began drying the 200 plastic chairs at the ceremony site while the musicians set up.

The girls and I drove over to the venue and stepped out into the cool air. I was shielded by umbrellas as I walked to the beginning of the aisle.

The ladies and men lined up, I took both my parents' arms and at 2pm the music started right as sun started peeking through the clouds... 

Click here to read part 3!

My Wedding Miracle

Alex and I got engaged September 15, 2012 (read that story here and here ), and spent the next couple of months just being engaged. Everyone's first question in response to our engagement was when is the big day, but my mind took awhile to connect the fact that being engaged meant that I was now to get married. 

We spent several deliberate occasions praying specifically for the Lord's guidance on when to get married and eventually decided on fall of 2013 (thinking late September or early October). We spent probably close to a month praying about when to get married- this important detail comes into play later!

My frugal side came out as we spent months (literally) relentlessly searching for a venue that was pretty, affordable, and big enough to fit 200+ guests.  In March (remember, we got engaged in September), we finally decided on a beautiful little event center called Kendal Mountain Recreation Center in Silverton, Colorado. The only dates they had however, were late in October, or September 14. We decided to go with September 14th even though it was a little earlier in the fall than we had originally planned.  We chose this date simply because of venue availability... or so we thought.

I joyfully planned my wedding over the next few months- and by plan I mean I looked on Pinterest a lot. And by joyful I mean I tried not to get annoyed on a daily basis with all the ridiculous details that go into a wedding (I am not a details person, people).

I spent the vast majority of my engagement in peace, confident in my decision to marry Alex. The main (and really the only) thing I questioned throughout our engagement was if we had chosen to get married at the right time.We had prayed so deliberately about when to get married that I wondered if we were following God's will or simply our own desires.

But enter wedding miracle #1.

About two weeks before the wedding, I was sifting through a box of momentos I had kept and I stumbled across a blue velvet drawstring bag. I immediately remembered what it held. Five years prior when I was 16, my parents had taken me out to a nice dinner and given me my purity ring. In the blue velvet drawstring bag came with a pledge that I signed, promising to save myself till my wedding night, and a silver ring that had adorned my hand ever since.

The memories washed over me as I opened the drawstring bag and pulled out the card that I had signed years back. I reread the pledge and then my breath was taken away as I saw my signature and the date that was signed at the bottom.

At the bottom of the purity pledge that I had signed five years earlier was my name and the date September 14, 2007.

That's right, my wedding date was exactly five years after I signed a pledge promising to save myself for my future husband and wedding night.

As the chills ran over me, it was then I knew. I knew that this day had been chosen by the Lord. September 14th was no arbitrary day that was decided on because it was the only date the venue had available. September 14th was a date that was chosen and ordained long before I signed the purity pledge at age 16, and long before Alex and I decided that that would be the date of our wedding. Our quest to get married in God's timing, and our intentional prayer surrounding the issue had truly been heard- God had answered our prayers and that night I knew we were getting married in His timing.

I went to bed that night completely at peace that, not only was Alex the man I was supposed to marry, but that September 14, 2013 was the day that I was supposed to marry him.

This peace and assurance was a blessing, and the necessary assurance I needed to make it through the week leading up to my wedding...

Read part 2 of the story here

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