Well, this is it, the big day. As of 1:00 PM (well, probably more like 1:30 PM, allowing for the typical progression of events in a Catholic nuptial Mass), I’ll be a married man.

And about time, too. Seriously, this has been an event almost six years in the making. And the more I think about it, the more I begin to suspect that this is what was meant to be, even if at times I’ve railed and raged against it with most of the faculties I apparently possess.

If there was ever a sign that this was meant to go somewhere, it’s that Grace a) actually humoured me enough on our first date to let me ask someone to take a picture of us, and that b) she kept the picture. Who does that, seriously? Who so invests himself into a first date that they flag down a total stranger in the mall, hand her a camera, and ask her to take a picture of himself and the girl that he asked out not a week prior?

Well, me, evidently.

But that’s how things work with the Lord — revelation is gradual, and things that don’t always seem to make sense in the moment will suddenly become completely sensible after some indeterminate length of time. This one picture, so off the cuff and random at the time it was taken, now has incredible meaning…and, in a way, always did. What couple who makes it to the altar can actually say they have a picture of their very first date ever…of their very first foray into the world as a couple, even if only in a nominal capacity?

There’s an incredible meaningfulness there, and yet it’s not something that was instantly apparent. But as I put the finishing touches on the slideshow for the wedding, and as I inserted a scan of that exact picture as the first picture of the “us as a couple” section of the presentation, suddenly it made perfect sense why I was suddenly inspired to ask a passerby to take that picture. That flash of inspiration, that split-second decision…and six years later, all the reasons behind it become plain.

This is meant to be. It always was. And what a fool I was in those times where I tried to make it into something that wasn’t meant to be.

It’s more than about time that Grace and I were married, and after almost six years we are about to become a promise fulfilled. How amazing is that, that men and women can be united in that way? And how amazing is the author of that unity, for the way He quietly but consistently hints at his plan, and inspires action in the hearts and minds of those same men and women?