Run Away, Run Away! or not...

If anyone ever says to you, "Will you help me with my wedding?" your immediate response should be to kick the sympathetic nervous system into gear and run away, full speed! Run away! Run away!

You might say that's a jerky thing to do, but I'm pleading with you: Do it! Run away! If you do not run away immediately, something horrible will happen: you will buy into the beautiful romanticism of helping a friend with a wedding, and you think it will be FUN! I'm telling you--it will NOT be fun! Weddings are painted as romantic, life-changing, and perfect, but they are draining, tiring, humbling. Do not ever, ever help anyone with their wedding.

Okay...or maybe not...The "Running Away from Assisting with Friends' Weddings" school of thought will only assist you if you plan on having no friends...or if you plan on spending your entire life operating as an egomaniac...or if you plan to pull off the 5,972 details of your own wedding alone. So while running away is tempting and extremely attractive, I actually don't recommend it.

Maybe you can entertain a mental flight from the scene of the nuptials, but at a surface level, you must appear put together and smile at all times. Whenever anyone expresses an urgent need, you must say, "I will be glad to help." Even if you're so stressed by it all that moments before it's time for wedding pictures to start you're locked in your car sobbing on the phone to your boyfriend who's safely seven states away, you must wipe away the tears, regain your composure, and walk in the doors to the church to face the big day.

What is provoking this line of thought? The exhaustion I endured in helping my friend Corrie with logistical details for her really fantastic wedding this last weekend...which was somehow dissolved in the moment when she walked past my seat in the reception hall, a floating woman in white, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "You did a great job." Somehow--having a good friend dressed in radiant white giving you a compliment can negate two day's worth of blisters, tears, and rampant exhaustion.

Last night as I talked about the weekend exhaustion I endured in helping Corrie and Joe have an amazing and beautiful wedding, my friend Dawn said, "The only thing that can get you through a day like that is intense love for the person you're serving." And it's true. There were countless times through the day when I was carrying chairs in/out of the nursery, helping a tuxedoed preschooler clean smashed-up french fry off his pants or tracking down MIA groomsmen and grandmas that I thought, "I will leave...I will leave...and life will get better." But then I'd see Corrie looking beautiful in her dress and Corrie's parents who seemed so thankful to have me there, and I stayed. I stayed because I knew that I was shielding these people I love from more stress, and that if I left, their day would be less breezy--suddenly the mother of the bride would be on her knees removing smashed-up french fry from the ringbearers tuxedo pants. That is no place for the mother of the bride!

Not that I feel a compulsive need to turn everything in my life into a reflection about Jesus, but seriously...I wonder if that's what Jesus feels like...when we're running around stressed and distracted by mashed-up french fries, he's wishing we could just stop and enjoy the beautiful day that's before us. So he says, "Here...let me clean up that mess...you--just keep your gaze forward and upward."

Corrie and Joe's wedding was a beautiful day...I was exhausted beyond belief...and as far as I know...the bride was not at any time needed to move chairs, haul tables, or load her passenger seat with floral arrangements. So. For one afternoon I was consistently humbled by servanthood and got a strong reminder of how closely love and service are intertwined. And although the life lesson is strong, I must tell you that should you so desire my assistance on the day of your wedded bliss, I regret to inform you I'll be out of town...