Pride comes before a fall…That is a well known biblical principle! If it is really true, then I better brace myself for a skinned knee or worse. I have been gloating lately. Several of my male friends have given the bride away recently. I must confess. I grinned to myself as I observed all of the expense and trouble of a nice wedding. I have sons. I will flip a few burgers for the rehearsal dinner and consider my financial investment to be complete. It would serve me well to stop gloating, because pride comes before a fall.
As I start calculating the magnitude of financial investment at a recent wedding, I had a sinking feeling. An image flashed through my head. One or possibly more of my boys will come home one weekend… Dad, I want you to meet _______. We are engaged to be married. That is great, I say. I am thrilled that a girl will actually put up with them! And she is pretty and sweet!
But the rest of the conversation goes like this: Dad, ________’ family is unable to pay for a wedding. There is a plethora of reasons for such financial hardship. She is a sweet and precious orphan. Or she was raised in a single parent home with limited resources. My son and his bride to be look at me hopefully, as the blood drains out of my head. I have visions of taking on a paper route or mowing lawns on my day off. But how I will respond to them?

I will not hesitate. I will not blink. I won’t even ask for a proposed wedding budget. I will simply say…yes. Yes I will gladly pay for the wedding. My boys’ brides will become an immediate part of our family. I will view them as daughters. The word in-law will be banished from our family vocabulary. If they really are orphans, that status will be changed instantaneously.

In the midst of my gloating at recent weddings, I thought about Jan’s family. They are a large clan. Her dad has six brothers and sisters. Her mother’s family is equally large and close knit. After we married, both sides of the family took me in immediately. Relating to a large extended family took some time for to adjust to for several years. I was not raised in a close knit extended family. In fact, I went 25 years without seeing any of my father’s family, after his death in 1978.

I was very wary at first. I was playing out of my league. Today I would not trade anything for the relationships I enjoy with her parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few outlaws too… I trust them and love them. When I think of how fortunate I am to have a relationship with all of them, I feel pretty humble. Such humility should override the gloating I did at the recent wedding. Pride comes before a fall for sure, so I think I will just be humbly grateful for those who took me in almost 26 years ago. And I will start saving my pennies for a wedding, because I know the conversation that begins with…Dad, I met this really nice girl… is coming. It is coming times three. I think I will go sharpen my lawnmower blade this afternoon…