This is the One

To my daughter and my almost son-in-law, who have found each other.

THIS IS THE ONE

This is the one who

                Will fold my daughter’s life into his own

                Will stand at the front of the church, waiting expectantly

                                As she appears in the doorway

                Will take her hand in his, sliding a circle of white-gold onto her finger

                                And making a promise he will never break

This is the one who

                Will find a house halfway between his and hers

                Will arm wrestle her bedroom furniture down our winding stairs

                                And into a borrowed pickup truck

                Will let her hang brightly colored curtains at all of the windows and

                                Tissue paper stained glass made by her pre-school class

This is the one. The one who

                Will show up for holiday dinners and family birthdays

                Will answer the phone when I call, holding it at arm’s length and shouting,

                                “It’s your mother!”

                Will accept that time with her does not belong to him alone.

He is the one who will

                Hold her hand as she labors in childbirth, buckle my grandchild into a car seat, and make sure to teach truth and light

This is the one who

                Will laugh when she laughs,

                Hold her when she cries, wiping each tear from her freckled face

                And tell her that of course she does not look fat in those jeans because she is perfect.

And he will mean it.

This is the one who will, in the inevitability of life’s harsh realities,

                                Stand beside her at a grave side

                                Pulling her to him as she says good-bye

                                Not caring that she stains the lapel of his good black suit—his only black suit—with     

                                                Her streaked eye shadow.

Because this is the one who

                Despite heart-breaks and broken dreams and lost chances and love left behind in a deep, long, valley of hurt,

                God has brought to her.

In the vastness of a universe often lacking in the essential ingredient of compassion, it is not really one person, one man, one woman

But God

                Who is

                The One.