The Grace of Love

“Rejoice! He said, for the wife of thy youth; rejoice and be glad with her. Be glad in your heart for the wife of thy youth, for I have given her to you My child, for I have given her to you.” As the last refrain of this song was sung I took my beloved’s hand and said, “I do”.  The minister offered his final comments and benediction; I kissed my bride and “Amazing Grace” (see day one of Abundant Grace) and I walked back down the aisle as husband and wife. 

Nine months earlier I was living with my grandmother who had raised me.  She was failing and we both knew it.  I was facing a giant emptiness in my life.  Then one day in the early fall when I should have been somewhere else (at work) doing something else (working) I took a day off for a picnic with some friends.  That day I met Amazing Grace.  Four months later, a week after we had announced our engagement, my grandmother passed away. 

Now we are transported back to Genesis 23 and 24.  Sarah has died.  For some reason I have always felt that she was a lot closer to Isaac than Abraham had been.  Isaac now had that great void of emptiness that the death of a dear and close loved one can bring.  Abraham now decided that it is time to find a wife for his son.  The dutiful servant is sent to bring the bride back from a distant land to become Isaac’s bride.  God was gracious to the servant in so many ways that it would take days to describe.  He prayed and God answered his prayer immediately with just the right girl.  He praised God and, having obtained permission from her father, took her home with him for Isaac.  Isaac is out alone in the field when they arrived.  He turns and there is his Amazing Grace. 

It is the wonderful grace of God that He cares about all of us, our whole being.  He isn’t just concerned about our eternal soul.  He is concerned about us.  Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the words to the wedding song “Thou Gracious God, Whose Mercy Lends”.  The first verse reads, “Thou gracious God, whose mercy lends the light of home, the smile of friends.”  God’s grace cares about us.  As the soloist finished the lines of our wedding hymn, which I wrote for my Amazing Grace, “For I have given her to you, My child, for I have given her to you,” I beheld the grace of God, not in intangibles, but in the tangible presence of my bride.  Isaac did the same.  Genesis 24:66 records, “Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her.  So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.” 

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