God’s Proof Is In The Bridesmaid’s Dress

     Almost two years ago, my daughter was in her close friend’s wedding.   Brooke’s bridesmaid’s dress arrived looking beautiful in the box but, upon trying it on, it was pretty much nonsymmetrical to her silhouette.   With the bride’s approval and my daughter’s skeptical confidence, this mom began to reconstruct the dress.   During the entire process, I kept declaring Maria, the bride, owed me BIG time.   By the time the dress fit and flowed perfectly on Brooke, I knew every seam of that gown.

     Fast forward to last April and Brooke’s wedding.   Less than three hours before the ceremony was to begin, while standing in a corner of the wedding cottage, I had the following conversation with God:  “Lord, you’ve gotten me through so many challenges leading up to this moment.  I’m grateful, but please not one more hurdle can I jump –even with You carrying me.”   Before I could utter an Amen, not a hurdle but a mountain arose.   A bridesmaid arrived without a dress.  (Seriously, you can’t make this up!!!)

     As I’m frantically trying to figure out a solution with no options in my magic bag, Maria came to the rescue.   She realized Brooke’s bridesmaids’ dresses were of the same color and material as worn in her wedding.   The big difference was Brooke’s bridesmaids, though all in the same color and material, each wore a different style gown.   In a panicked scream, Maria asked Brooke, “where is your bridesmaid’s dress from my wedding?”   To which Brooke answered, “fifty minutes away, somewhere in the stuff I moved yesterday into the condo.”   Next, was my turn to shriek, “Brooke, we need that dress.  I can make it work.”   Brooke retorted, “Mom, it won’t work.  We aren’t the same size.  My size ten dress will swim on a size four figure.”   I countered, “I know every seam in that dress.  I can sew her into it.”

     Immediately, the wedding hairdresser and her husband headed their car toward the dress that was somewhere in the move in mess at the condo.   Marie’s husband set out to purchase me a sewing kit.  Seriously, I told him to go nowhere else but the Hobby Lobby I had passed on the way to the wedding venue.  We needed God to direct us to the necessary tools for this miracle in the making!!!

     Forty minutes before the wedding was to start, the dress arrived.   God’s hands worked the miracle through my fingers sewing faster than ever before.   Last knots were being made and thread cut as the bridesmaids were lining up — hallelujah and praise God, on time, I might add!!   Of greatest testimony to God’s changing disaster to blessing, no guest could tell one bridesmaid was, literally, sewn into her dress!!   Oh, and yes, hugging Maria I reassured her, she had paid me back BIG, BIG time.

     So why do I tell you this nonfiction story?   I share it because it truly proves God provides for our needs, even before we ever know them.   As I was muttering under my breath while re-making Brooke’s bridesmaid’s dress, God was giving me the trial run solution for my daughter’s wedding day quandary.   While my eyes were opened to this at Brooke’s wedding, they were not totally focused on just the celebration of God saving that day.   Of even greater significance was it for me, and all of you, to trust that God knows all our disasters (and has their “soul”utions) long before they arrive at our doorstep.   Nothing is happenstance to God.

     The thread of God (His will and way) weaves through the tapestry of all our challenges.   The question is not if God has a “soul”ution for our challenges, but rather, if our souls trust God for all our needed answers.   As for me, my heart chuckles and my soul recognizes, and cherishes, that God’s proof is in the bridesmaid’s dress!!!