Details.

Taylor got married this weekend! His wife is Ashley. Trent is getting married in two weekends! His fiancé is Meg. This is a tender and intimate time in our family. Much of what has happened and is happening is so intimate that I can hardly even put words to it. I remember one time when I was being taught over a week by one of my mentors Larry Crabb. He had risen each morning before the day began to spend time in the book of Revelation. He would then share a devotion time to start our day from what He had received from the Lord in his time in Revelation that morning. One morning he told us that while he was spending time with Jesus in the Word that the Spirit told him, "This is just for the two of us. I don't want you to share this with everyone this morning. This is just for us." I am aware that the period of days that we are in is so rich that my heart is not really able to put into words all that is happening inside of me. And Trinity is inviting us to treasure these things up in our hearts with Him.

Lea and I rode our bikes on Monday morning and shared stories and oatmeal and coffee. We keep remembering special, intimate moments from the weekend. We keep anticipating the wedding that is to come in several weeks. The details. Watching our sons and their girls plan these weddings has been intense. Both couples have sought to honor Jesus and one another by not idolizing their wedding day and all that it entails. Even so, the details are mammoth. These two couples have been in it. They have been working really hard as they have prayed, thought and planned about these special days. As Lea and I have watched them in the details, it has been so sweet and so overwhelming. It is a lot. People, people, people, places and things. Hearts, hearts and hearts. Literally hundreds of details. We have seen the times when they just wanted to chuck it and elope. Maybe more serious than we know. We've seen the times of being so tired, beyond tired. The times of longing just to be together and not leave each other's house at night because they want to be together so intensely. The details. It's almost too much really. Really more than hearts can fully handle. It's that involved.

And as I am coming out of one wedding weekend and moving joyfully toward another, this is what my heart is singing. We, who are in Christ, are in the details heading towards a wedding. I really don't mean this in some trite, cute wedding analogy thing because of the current reality in our family. I mean really....in....the....details.....heading....towards....a....wedding. That's what the Spirit's wind words are saying right now to me. As we are living in the beautiful, crushing realities of life on earth, each day of growth and maturing brings an ache more and more into awareness. We long. We long ravenously for things to be right, for our desperate hearts to be right. No more sin. No more sin. No more. No more evil. No more enemy. No more heart break. No more. And our ache is that we are catching hints of sights and sounds that the "no more" that we long for ever increasingly climaxes at a wedding. And then remains climaxed forever. Our wedding. His wedding. "Dancing groom of the ages, frolicking God awaiting His bride."

I am a mess of hopeful, weary details. We Christ lovers are in the intense thick of the details of our coming wedding. Every detail so intricately important, not to be missed, crucial. And almost secretly, though we are involved in the details, we are being carried along in the details. It's as if we are not having to compile the list of "to do's". It seems that list is happening without a list needing to be compiled. Carried along by one who so longs for me, for us to be at the wedding that it's not dependent on us making sure the list is being taken care of because He lovingly knows how needy we are and how if left to ourselves, we would forget it all and Him. This love is so other worldly that He will not let that happen. He will get me to the wedding. He will get you to the wedding. He will get us to the wedding.

Ahhhh. The details can sometimes blur that the wedding is real. There is a wedding isn't there? Yes. That's what these details are about.

Hear this holy whisper. These dripping words of graceful invitation. Wait for it. Climax forever.......

"You're invited."

There's more.