“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life...Consider the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25-27)

Worry and anxiety are two things my wife and I are very well acquainted with. Not only must we contend with the worry and anxieties of newly married life—Will we remember to pay our rent on time? Will we be able to stand each other’s company after a few weeks of this living together thing? How are we going to fit all of this stuff into our new apartment, and WHERE do all these cardboard boxes keep coming from?—but the two of us are, on top of all these things, just sort of worrisome people.

Before the wedding, and despite my wife’s expertise as a professional event coordinator, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves caught up in the fretting and freaking out over every little detail about our approaching nuptials. Our biggest concerns were centered on several specific preparations to be made for the day off.

The Pillars of Our Wedding Worry:

1. Will we have enough food? Joanna is from an event-loving Italian family in New York, and to New York Italians, weddings are a BIG DEAL. Especially, I learned, the cocktail hour and desserts. “We’re gonna knock ‘em dead at the cocktail hour,” my father-in-law would say. Running out of food and drink, and without the help of Jesus to replenish the feast mid-wedding, would be unacceptable.
2. Will the pastor remember we’re getting married? The pastor who married us was an exceptionally nice, professional, and accomplished minister of a lovely little Lutheran church in Pennsylvania. He was, unfortunately, without a church secretary, which made getting in touch with him very difficult. Being pulled in so many directions by so many different parishioners, we sometimes joked (but secretly actually worried about) whether he would even remember when we were getting married and, for that matter, who we were.
3. Will we have enough light to take our wedding photos? We loved pushing our photographers beyond their comfort zones. We took our engagement photos on a frigid, windy, 13-degree day in the middle of Bucks County and Doylestown. After conceding that day, it was understandable that our photographers would caution us, numerous, NUMEROUS times, that because we chose November, that by the time our ceremony ended the sun would likely be setting. They insisted we instead take our pictures before the ceremony. My wife insisted that that wasn’t going to happen (The bride and groom should not see one another the morning of the wedding, according to tradition). This gave us more anxious concern than anything else pre-wedding day.

All and all, I am very pleased to say that, despite some hiccups the morning of, we could not have been more off-base with our worries. In fact, the things we worried most about, our 3 Pillars of Worry, were the things that turned out the best.

Not only was the food delicious, but we had plenty to go around. We even came home with left over desserts that we are still working our way through a week later. The pastor arrived at the church shortly after we did, and could not have presided over a more pleasing-albeit concise-ceremony. And because the ceremony ran so smoothly, we were out early enough to take photos with plenty of light. The photographers had even, by chance, happened upon a beautiful spot of open field close to the church which he had not planned on using that let us take even greater opportunity of the available light.

Lord, show us the impracticality of worry. Help us to instead be confident in the words of your Son, Jesus Christ, that we shall be provided for. Help us to instead replace our worry, especially at this time of year, with praise and thanksgiving for those things that you have given us. Amen.

Contributed by Michael
Monday November 24, 2014
Liturgical Year A: Week 52
Liturgical Color: Green
Sunday Gospel reading: Proper 29
Twenty-seventh Sunday after Pentecost