The Wedding
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dads and Daughters

Jack and Jean were among our earliest friends when I began ministry in my very first church as full-time pastor. Their friendly faces and warm smiles were a great encouragement to a young preacher with the Sunday morning pulpit jitters. The smiles were genuine, and that was a surprise to me. They had been through more trials than almost anyone I’d known.

Jack had been a chemist with a successful company. Over a period of ten years, a diagnosis of severe rheumatoid arthritis took Jack from being a healthy workingman to someone confined to a wheelchair and living on a disability pension. By the time I met him, he could move himself from the wheelchair only with great difficulty, and then, only to shift to another chair, or to stand for a moment. Pain and effort showed in his face when making these transitions, which were usually few and far between.


He and Jean got around well in a new van, converted for the wheelchair. A small elevator installed in their townhouse moved Jack between the floors, and despite his misshapen, arthritis-bent fingers, he learned to use a computer and assisted us at the church with some of our financial work.

Through Jack and Jean, I came to know their now-adult daughters. When Susan, the eldest, arrived at my office to ask me to perform a wedding for her and her fiancé, Eric, it was no great surprise. Her father had hinted only a few weeks earlier that this might be coming.

The counseling and the planning of the ceremony seemed to go by very quickly, and soon it was almost time for the wedding. One day Susan made an unscheduled stop at my office. From the look on her face, I knew that something was seriously wrong. She came straight to the point. “My dad wants to walk me down the aisle,�?she said, close to tears. “He really thinks he can do it. He absolutely insists on it.�?BR>
“I’ll practice until the wedding. I’m going to do this,�?he told me adamantly while we sat at his kitchen table drinking tea the next day. “Please pray for me!�?I knew there was no changing his mind when he was determined to do something, and so I let the subject drop. I did, however, pray.

When the evening of the rehearsal arrived, we set up several scenarios which would allow Jack to “present�?the bride. Only one of the three involved him walking, and we included it only to please Jack. A brief experiment that evening seemed to deflate Jack’s determination as he only took a few steps before he had to sit back down. From the platform, I watched sadly as he hung his head where he sat. Again I prayed.

The wedding day arrived. Everything was going as planned. At the top of the hour, I found myself standing on the steps of the platform with groom and groomsmen awaiting the bridal party.

The music began playing and the bridesmaids proceeded down the aisle. Each paused and turned as she passed the front row of pews and took her place opposite the groomsmen. The maid of honor was last to walk, and as she turned in her appointed position, the music softly concluded.

After a brief pause, the organist played the dramatic opening notes of the wedding march. “Will you all please stand,�?I instructed.

I found myself thinking of Jack. He had been brought up the steps to the sanctuary earlier, and now waited in the wheelchair by the door. With the struggles of the previous evening still in mind, I was sure that Jack would not be walking the aisle today. I was disappointed for his sake, but I couldn’t imagine his hurt. This had meant so much to him.

The doors to the church sanctuary opened to the side at the rear. This meant that the bride would have to walk behind the last row of pews before turning into the center aisle. I could just make out Susan’s progress above the heads of the now standing congregation because of the puff of white taffeta that stood up from her veil.

I saw that puff of white stop, and then murmuring began near the back of the church. A moment later, the beautiful bride made her turn into the main aisle. It took a second to realize what was happening. Susan was being escorted by her father, and he was walking!

Slowly, and painfully, Jack took a few steps and then paused to catch his breath. With a cane in his left hand and her arm on his right, father and daughter moved toward me. It seemed as if the entire congregation was holding its collective breath, all of us fearing that the next step would be the last. I believe, in that moment, that we were all unified in prayer for Jack.

The organist looked at me with panic in her eyes as the music came close to its conclusion. I motioned for her to continue playing, and a few more minutes inched past before the bride and her father finally arrived at the front.

As the music concluded, I quickly gathered my thoughts. Still awestruck, I voiced a rather shaky introduction. I almost choked up when I asked, “Who presents this woman to be married to this man?�?Jack’s voice came back clear and strong, and not without some measure of pride: “Her mother and I do.�?BR>
As Susan hugged her father and then took her place alongside her soon-to-be husband, I noticed that her face was wet with tears. I noticed my own face was wet. In fact, it seemed like the whole congregation had been deeply moved.

The wedding reception which followed was a wonderful affair. It was one of the grandest I had ever attended. But whatever the charm or excitement of the post-wedding celebration, the highlight of the day, in everyone’s eyes, remained the miracle we had witnessed shortly before. The miracle of Jack, with determination born of love, and with faith in the living God, escorting his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day!

No truer words express the miracle of that day as those written in Mark 10:27: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.�?/DIV>