Great Is Thy Faithfulness

It was surprisingly difficult for me and my siblings when my 85-year-old father told us he would be marrying the Lovely Widow.

This should have been an easy moment. Although we hadn't known this woman well, we had been acquainted with her for years and we knew she shared our father's faith and his love of music. We also knew Dad had been desperately lonely since Mom's sudden death almost three years ago, and that he is not a man who thrives in solitude. We approved of him keeping company with the Lovely Widow, attending concerts and swimming laps together.

We wanted him to be happy. 

Still, when Dad announced that he and the Lovely Widow had decided to marry, I swallowed past a lump in my throat to congratulate him. I was happy for him, truly, but oh, how I missed my mother. Knowing that my congratulations carried endorsement of another woman living in Mom's house felt disloyal, as if I were endorsing an erasure.

Two weekends ago as I finished cleaning out Mom's sewing room so that the Lovely Widow could have an office space, Husband helped me load 10 boxes of quilt scraps and wool strips into the car. "But you don't quilt or braid rugs," he said. "What are you going to do with this?" I didn't have a good answer. I only knew I could not throw them in the trash because Mom's hands had touched them, and I wanted to prolong that touch.

Last Saturday, though, Dad and the Lovely Widow stood before a wise minister who spoke in his exhortation about God's mercies, new every morning. God is the God of new beginnings, he told the couple and their gathered family. He gives us new hope, and new days, and new life. And on that day, He was giving a new covenant to two people whose covenants with their first spouses had been faithfully completed.

The pastor's words traveled straight to my heart. Because of this new covenant Dad will no longer come home to an silent house or wake up to an empty room. He will have a partner as he travels down the road, both literally and figuratively. As my father and his bride spoke their vows I thought of the joy they will bring each other and I smiled.

I will never stop missing my mother, but she was the one who taught her children that love stretched is love multiplied. We won't be erasing her love for us, or ours for her; that love is written in permanent ink. We will be stretching and multiplying love in ways Mom would approve.

Blessings, Dad, to you and your Lovely Wife. We love you.