Again.
Wistfully placing a few books back onto a shelf, Annie sighed.
Oh, it wasn’t that she was upset.
Not really, anyway.
It’s just that …well, it was like a sore finger that kept getting paper cuts.
She had several such annoying slices lined up on her index finger, but that was beside the point. Surely it was natural for a bookstore manager to have such marks of the trade. In fact, she was grateful that her days where filled with shelving wholesome books for Christian families. Their store was one of the few still holding on in the midst of many stepping out of business.
But this?
True, it was nothing unusual. Especially so in thirty years of life. In fact, it was entirely common. And it wasn’t that she always felt this low afterwards. It was just today.
Sometimes the experience was easy, other times it was hard.
She never knew which way it would hit her.
The invitation still pressed itself into her memory, the words beautifully scripted, the paper gilded with a shiny gold.
You are Invited to the wedding of Mr. Matthew Douglas to Miss Alice Brown, at 9:00am on February 14th, 20–. Please RSVP online.
It was break time anyway. Quickly passing several bookshelves she fled to her favorite refuge. Behind an alcove of stacks of books and boxes waiting to be unpacked, a pocket of quiet could be found.
She still needed to pick out a book for her birthday. Dad had said she could look through the new arrivals and pick something special. Letting her fingers trace over a set of thick volumes, her mind wandered through the gilded swirls still before her mental vision. Swirls that traced a delicate frame of longing around her own dreams.
How often had she attended a wedding with the knowledge that she was in such a difference place than the bride. That in the evening, she would help put away chairs and enjoy the after-wedding time with the bride’s family and friends. How often she had longed and wished and dreamed of her day. That day she still hoped for in her heart.
Picking up a thick volume with a soft suede cover, she paused, looking out a nearby window partly cut off by boxes. Rolling hills and dotted farms knitted themselves into a welcoming blanket beneath a woven crystalline sky, threaded luxuriously with whipped, cream-like mist. Was there someone special out there for her too? As her fingers curled absentmindedly around the top edge of the book’s cover, she closed her eyes and prayed. “Father, I know that if it is Your best for me, there is someone out there. Please help me to be patient and trust in Your will. You know best.”
For some reason moisture threatened behind her eyelids and she blinked, trying to clear her vision. Refocusing back on the book in her hands she gently pushed her mind forward. She needed to think about other things. To be focused on the calling God had placed on her life today. To bring God’s Word, His truth to many–this bookstore being a part of that. She’d take a look at this book and then move back to work. There was much yet to be done.
Placing her fingers into the middle of the pages, she opened the book and looked down to read.
Words, more gilded than any gold of earth could make them. Words, more glittering than any wedding feast on earth, sparkled before her eyes.
“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.” Isaiah 54:1-5
With tears in her eyes, she knew.
Dad and Mom wouldn’t mind. Holding the Bible close to her, she slipped out the back door and ran to her favorite opening in the woods. The chair was there just as she had left it the day before. She had planned earlier to come out and read a favorite book, but now …
She would spend it with her Beloved. The One, who for every one, is more than a Valentine indeed.
“For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” Isaiah 54:10-12
