She said yes.

My husband officiated the wedding of two dear friends last night. And what a wedding it was! We are officially at the age and stage when we no longer fit as groomsmen or  bridesmaid or even matrons. And I am so thankful.  Our new roles as officiant and prayer-gatherer, errand-runner, perspective-offerer are far more suited to us (and far less make-up is involved, at least for me).

When a woman-in-Christ says yes to marriage, she steps out in bravery into multiplied brokenness and beauty to be exposed both within herself and without. She says yes to leaving all she has known (the good, the bad, and the ugly cloaked in the comfortable garb of the familiar). She says yes to cleaving to an imperfect man cleaving imperfectly to a perfect Savior. She says yes to an unknown future of employment and unemployment, to struggles and sicknesses that they ca not yet see or imagine in their ripped and ravishing counterparts.

She says yes to quiet nights bearing heavy struggles. She says yes to conflicts that she could never contemplate. She says yes to meeting needs she doesn’t have. She says yes to championing and complementing her husband, even when he and/or the world think there is not much to champion.

That’s a lot of quiet, hidden yeses hidden behind the initial yes.

But she does all of that in the power and on the promises and in the presence of the Christ who says yes, let it be so.

For all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 2 Corinthians 1:20. 

Before time was wound, when the Father set Him apart, to simultaneously be the sheep to be slain and the shepherd to lay down His life for the flock, He said, “Yes, let it be so.

When the time came to step into time and be born as a crying newborn, He cried,  “Yes, let it be so.”

In the garden, after wrestling with the looming shadows of death, He wrested a, “Yes, let it be so.”

After three days in darkness, the Father called him forth from the grave, as he had recently done with Lazarus,  and he shouted, “Yes,  let it be so.”

As I was thinking about all these yeses, Sarai-soon-to-become-Sarah, the brave matriarch came to mind.

Sarai Said Yes

Yes to the unknown. Yes to leaving her home.
Yes to follow her husband to an unknown land.
Yes to the God who refused to fail her when foolish Abram did. Twice.
Yes to her husband’s God becoming her own.
An impatient yes to her nagging fear that birthed an Ishmael.
A dubious laugh betraying unbelief that God could do what could not be done.
Yes in the formed of shocked laughter as she held her promised child in her wrinkling arms.
A horrified no when Abraham took their beloved son on a death-doomed errand.
An exultant yes to the God who said no just in time because a greater Yes was to come.
A tearful, triumphant yes to her aged partner as he held her hand on her deathbed, asking, “My sweet Sarah, would you do it all again?”

Watching friends and church members say yes always points me to the One whose Yes enabled my own yes.