Wednesday July 6, 2022
           (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Weddings in Danville
It is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain down justice upon you.
I will be officiating four weddings today at Danville Correctional Center. The weddings will be held in the visiting room, and the brides will be dressed up and beautiful. The grooms will wear clean Levis and blue workshirts. They have needed patience to get to this point, and they have filled out more paperwork than they expected. The rules change often.
Danville Chaplain Chris follows the rules. He sympathizes with those seeking to be wed. Often they have known each other for years, and their wedding plans were interrupted by a jail sentence. Prison time can encourage healing, wholeness and relational health. Certainly not always, but often. Weddings fit into that hopeful scenario.
Visitors like the brides, and like me, walk through ten locked doors to get to the visiting room. That can be a little intimidating at first, but I’ve been doing these weddings for twenty years or so. Marrying people is better than burying them, which I’ve also been doing, for even longer. There are verses in Colossians 3 that I can recite from memory. I read them during every wedding:
As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.  Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
 I’ll put on my suit and tie, and I hope they will put on love, which will bind them together in perfect unity. Because it lasts a lifetime, marriage is very difficult. Putting on love, over and over, makes it work. Morning by morning, new mercies we see.
Seek always the face of the Lord. Sing to him, sing his praise. Look to the Lord in his strength. He is the Lord, he is our God. Throughout the earth his judgments prevail.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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