My Best Friend's Wedding Part 2

Okay, so I never did Part 2...
I guess I just can't believe it or haven't absorbed it all yet.

Aim's rehearsal dinner was at The Station in Rock Hill without shrimp and grits on the menu as my best friend is still at heart a true Yankee from New York. It was great! As I sat at a table with the other 3 bridesmaids that went to high school with Amy, I just kept looking at these women and seeing the girls we used to be. I can remember the craziness that they all "did" as high schoolers, that we all "did." And I just smiled...it was just so nice to look at these familiar faces, after moving away from home and all things familiar and to see them to celebrate the last of our bunch getting married...my childhood best friend of 2o-some odd years marrying her new best friend...her gift from God...her missing half. It was great and by the end of the food and laughter and strolls down memory lane and jokes about Amy and music, Aim stood next to each of us and told the crowd who we were and how long she'd known us and what she loved about the memories of our pasts together since our presents and futures are scattered across the map. And I was last, and I had to choke back tears because Aim and I were not the kind of girls that cry. And I heard her say this is my best friend of 21 years and she had to stop not much farther after that because as I said we are girls that do not cry...but now we are women, and on occasion, we spring a leak...

So, Chris and I left the rehearsal dinner in Pa's Porsche with the top down and I did feel like a teenager again --- then we had matron of honor duties to complete that kept us up until 1 am, but it was great, it was Amy's wedding --- and Amy has had a long time of it all - this one blog cannot cover everything she and I have been through together and separated, too. She moved here when we were in first grade from NY and she moved back to NY after her dad had been laid off a really long time in fifth grade and she moved back to SC in eighth grade and we were inseparable during classes in high school - sometimes known as Jen-Amy - she is the smartest person I know besides Chris (gotta throw him a bone sometime) - then college dragged us apart - me to my high school sweetheart, marriage, college and to my Jesus who I wish to only sit at His feet more than I do --- and her to College of Charleston, to career, to city life --- where our lives were so different, but we made it through with love and I hope grace, too --- and she dated her high school sweetheart again in college and into med school and then pharmacy school was awful and her high school sweetheart became her fiance and then he became the bain of her existence and then he wasn't her fiance - and it tore her from her frame --- and I thought she'd just given up on love --- but the best part is that LOVE never gives up or fails...and love sent Wes to Amy...

The Way of Love

13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

And we were walking around the day of Aim's wedding, and I just kept thinking how much I loved her as my friend as a girl --- we were 20 when Chris and I got married, and we were girls and we trembled that day as I married my soul mate and she wept that day - it was so big to us, LOVE --- And we had the bridal luncheon and poked fun at Aim one last time - who said she would never get married --- and we went to get our hair done - and we walked out of the salon and I caught a glimpse of Aim and she was stunning, not because we had paid way too much money to have hair and make up done, but because I could see love in her eyes that came from the depths of her soul...from her Creator...it was the most beautiful I'd ever seen her. I could see fear there, too, but I could see love shining under that thin layer of fear.

And we went to the church - and I helped her into her gown and her mom (who had been our girl scout troop leader as girls and was just like my own mom) helped her with her jewelry and I got to touch up her make up and put her veil on and her tiara and I just couldn't believe it, but I could. Love touches our lives in so many unique ways...I felt it on my wedding day, with the birth of my children, with my friends in times of great joy or great sorrow, and I felt it that day as I walked down the aisle preparing the way for my best friend to meet her beloved - and I call it all rich blessing - and can't believe it can be squandered on such a wretch like me as the song says.

And we took pictures and we laughed and I kissed her new hubby's sweaty bald head - now that is LOVE! and we left the church and we went to the dairy barn and we smiled and danced and embraced and ate---because Catholic wedding or not, I am still Baptist and can still eat!!! And then the father of the bride made a toast - and then the Best Man - and they called my name and the world rushed in and the tears rushed out before I even got to the front of the room...my childhood best friend who had seen already the best of times and the worst of times was married - we were not girls as we were when I married, we were women and I stood there that day bidding a fond farewell to childhood and embracing womanhood - I had not expected that day to bring so much, but it truly did and to Wes and Amy sharing it with me, I am forever grateful and to my Lord who hides His Word in my heart and gives me a new song each morning I am stunned and awestruck...

And so to Wes and Amy --- God bless and may this life you have together bring much love - in good times and in bad --- and to Wes, you hold part of my heart in your everyday, you hold my best girl, take care...We love you both, though I do not wish to kiss your bald sweaty head ever again...