“You are . . .”

 Today is my wedding anniversary….February 27th, 1981….the day I became his wife.  But he is not here…I remember alone.

…and then my Groom came.

Earlier in the day a friend had come to my door, handing me a beautiful bouquet of yellow tulips, and a small note.  She told me of how she had begun her day as usual, in her car driving to her job.  Turning on the radio she had heard the words, “You are….” 

Later that day, she again turned on her car radio, and again the first words were “You are…”  Remembering the morning’s first words, her attention was peaked.   Twice in the same day, the first words out of the radio were exactly the same.  “You are . . .”  Each a different context, but exactly the same two words. She turned off the radio, sensing that God was the one saying those words… she was listening.

As she began her drive back home at the end of her work day, she again turned on the radio.  And  for a third time that day, the first words over the airwaves were, “You are…”   Now, her full attention arrested, she asked God directly….was this something she was being prompted to say to God? Something she needed to consider about His Character, or His Goodness, or…?

Then the sentence that had begun three times that day was completed . . . God finished.    “Tell Janet this message from Me:   

               ‘You are beautiful……You are Loved……You are Mine.’”

She stopped the car, wrote down the words, and bought a sweet bouquet of yellow tulips.  She delivered the flowers….and a simple card with the message.  A warm hug, and she was gone.

I contemplated the message for a while….it was familiar somehow.  I knew I had heard these words before, but…..

Then, it came to me!   Yes!  I had heard these words before….decades earlier.  It was a moment in time when God had shown me a picture of myself as a little girl.  A significant adult in my life  had said words to me that made me feel deeply ashamed for twirling in front of a mirror, delighting in the pretty, flowing dress I had been given.  Then, I’d heard the words, “Tsk, tsk, tsk,….vanity, vanity!”  

God showed me that in that moment, so long ago, it was as if a heavy black curtain had been thrown over me.   I could not see out, and no one could see me through it.  It was a curtain of shame …unjustified shame … that I had unknowingly lived beneath for most of my life.

Then, the “picture” had changed, and I saw Jesus standing at the altar…a wedding altar.  He saw me beneath that thick, black curtain of shame.  Effortlessly, as if it was a piece of tissue, He pulled that heavy black curtain off of me, flinging it over His Shoulder as if it was “nothing”.    Immediately, He held a pure, white veil…a wedding veil….and placed it over me.  It was the most delicate, beautiful, sheer white veil I had ever seen.  I could see through it. . . and He could see me, almost as if it was made of the most transparent crystal fabric.  I felt utterly beautiful beneath it….as a chosen bride. 

As He looked at me, He had said,  “You are beautiful.  

                                                               You are loved.

                                                                       You are mine.”

Today, the day of my 39th wedding anniversary, sitting alone in my living room I read those words again.  Those same words that had been spoken to me years ago by my Heavenly Bridegroom, and were now in writing on a simple notecard. Before me were 3 “timer” candles set around the vase of tulips.  As I repeated the simple words, “You are beautiful….” one of the candles came to light. “You are loved…” the second candle lit.   “You are Mine.” The third candle’s flame sprang to life.

 My Bridegroom had come . . . on this day that was the marker of the earthly bridegroom who had captured my heart for 37 years.  My Heavenly Bridegroom renewed His Promise….His forever Love for me.