She was fourteen-years-old and already had a tiny life growing inside her womb. It was a different time and a different place, and she was not a bad girl. She was in love with her classmate, and they would be married by the time the summer was ended, before the swell of her tummy was seen, before the talk among the magpies scattered dirt along her path. She promised her mother to keep the secret, to move through the small town with the innocence she possessed just two months earlier.
Church Camp was awkward, but her secret remained safe among the giggling girls that gathered to play. The hot days of Bible Study turned into a life changing call to accept Jesus Christ as Savior on the last night, and many girls rushed forward to be counted as His.
She held back, feeling the unworthiness of her soul as a result of her careless sin. The leader of worship saw her watching from the shadows with a look of longing, and he went to her with a personal invitation to come as she was to the Lord.
That Holy Night, she accepted Jesus into her life, and the angels in Heaven rejoiced that another one of His had surrendered her life to Him.
Just as they had planned, as the end of summer drew near, vows of promise and hope were exchanged by the ones that loved. There was some talk heard amongst the embittered that maybe the wedding was necessary for reasons other than love; but, most that witnessed the ceremony saw that the union was meant to be.
As the witnesses gathered together in the church reception hall just next door, to receive the marriage in celebration, the still and quiet voice began singing at the altar, sharing of devotion to God and her new husband.
The crowd hushed and peered through the cracked door as she sang with the truth of her soul of how He had joined them together, and “There is Love.” Not a dry eye of the hidden spectators remained as they quickly closed the doors to their privacy, and prepared for the reception. The witnesses were a little wiser to the real marriage that had taken place.
Some of the words to the wedding song of “There is Love” written by Noel Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul, and Mary)
“…Now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain
For what whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name…
There is Love.
A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now and till the end.
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love.
There is Love.
Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life?
And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
Oh there’s Love.
There is Love.
The union of your spirits here has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is love…oh, there is love.”
The next week the newlyweds prepared together to enter into their new life as husband and wife at their High School. They hugged tightly with their new school clothes crinkling underneath their nervousness of the moment. First days of school were always tough, and the awkwardness of their reality made it even tougher.
He had cleaned their car and buffed it to a shiny glistening the day before, and they bravely jumped into the carriage that would carry them to their tomorrows…
They say that they had only a moment of pain. The drunk ran through the stop sign and plowed into their car head on. They were thrown almost 100 feet into a barbed wired wheat field, and when they found their bodies, they were together, hand in hand.
The funeral was held in the gymnasium as mourners came from miles around. There was the leader of worship who joyfully announced that she was in Heaven that same day she died as a result of her walking in faith toward her Savior that past summer. And her husband was in Heaven that day as a direct result of her sharing her faith. And the precious baby that was was in their arms in Heaven as a result of them allowing him life.
As they closed the lid on the white gowned wife and mother, a still and quiet voice in the midst of the gathered crowd started to sing the song of devotion, that had been sung by her with such tenderness, just the week before…
“There is Love”
Matthew 18:18–20 (KJV 1900)
18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
