It was if the altar was at the top of Mt. Everest…
Late April is beautiful in Atlanta and the expected wedding venue oozed of an exquisite ambiance.
Like most eager brides, she listened again and again to reports of the coronavirus shutting down one thing after another and shutting down her dream.
Spring is a time of hope; of new growth and budding and all of the symbols of starting a lifetime of love.
But such optimism would have to be put off…indefinitely.
The wedding dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses hung in closets instead of gracing excited young women.
When restrictions and predictions seemed to offer a window of hope, a second date was scheduled for the fall only to have that fall through.
When she finally scaled the pandemic’s peak to say her vows, it was October. There were no new buds on the trees. Instead, providence provided a different metaphor. Since the third and successful attempt at a ceremony occurred in an upstate New York vineyard, it was clear that the most luscious and plump purple grapes would suffice as the succulent substitutive symbols as if Jesus had saved the best wine for last. PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Heaven's Vinedresser turns mature grapes into the sweetest of wines.
In a land of grain and new wine; His heavens also drop down dew…You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and new wine abound…“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit"..."Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now." Deuteronomy 33:28 NASB, Psalm 4:7 NASB, John 2:10 NIV