A love Pictured (By J.G. Trattner)

I pray to be as a young bride that I observed this weekend. She was marched up to the front like any other June bride, marched to be given away to her lover, but this bride was different. As her father proclaimed in a quiet voice, “her mother and I give her away,” the veiled bride was handed over to her lover. Once she was firmly planted in front of him, her lover and soon to be husband lifted the veil off her face to reveal the beauty beneath.
Though my subject is not the lifting of her veil, I still must pause at this moment to clarify how he withdrew the thick veil that enshrouded his love’s face. He withdrew it with swift purpose, almost as if overly eager. In fact it took him two tries to raise it completely away from her face. Yes, his eagerness and desire were very apparent. Again, it seemed that his eagerness was not completely for his own ravishing of her beauty, but at this point it was as if he was saying, “Everyone look at my bride take in her beauty see how beautiful she is.” Is this not like the Lord? Though we are His, he is eager for now, to show us off to this world, that they might see the beauty of His bride.
Ah, but now we come to what I desire so much, to be reflected in my own life. Once this veil was off, oh my friend, if you could only have seen this brides face, or gaze into the volumes upon volumes of messages shouted clearly through her eyes, she made the midday sun to appear as if it was blocked by the heaviest of rain clouds, and that flowers could not bloom so beautiful, or smell so fragrant as her face appeared. She wavered not from her lovers face, but gazed up with, well, emotion that ink and paper can not give justice to. Her luster was so unambiguous that it caused the whole audience to feel somewhat nervous, and (I kid you not) at first site of this unique glow a nervous laughter rippled through us as an audience. It did not take us long though to be passed this emotion and move to one of great admiration. I challenge you to enquire of any who attended this wedding and I am sure they would verify what I have said, if not come to a loss of words in trying to explain the radiance that shown from this bride’s face.
I wish each of you could have been there, I have seen many brides all wonderful and unique in their own ways, but none that beamed as this bride for her lover. It was not a thing of physical beauty, or having all the right trimmings, in fact she made her own dress (beautiful yet simple) and they stood under a simple canopy. The only English word that I know that tries to define the emotion and radiance of her face is this word “ravished”. (I also encourage you to look up this word in your current dictionary as well as in a Webster’s 1828 dictionary and look at it in its positive context.) This is a pitiful attempt at illustrating this bride’s radiance, but I know that this is the type of love that I want for my Savior. It was as if all she wanted to do was be in his arms and lift him up and exalt him with her beauty. “Oh Father, I want to grow in this love relationship with You, for I also believe that it is Your desire to take the veil off Your bride so the world can see her beauty. I would like a nervous laughter to ripple through the onlookers as they see my love for you. "Draw me and we will run after thee.”

Note: One can not shine like this unless they are ravished themselves.