A friend of mine is struggling with her oldest daughter, who continues to be in a bad relationship where neither the daughter, nor her fiance, has a steady job or medical insurance. These are the parents of my friend’s only grand baby and  have recently decided to get married, despite lack of income and a harried existence looming around them. There is very little stability in the relationship, and most of it is one-sided, according to my friend.

“I have all but upset her to the point of cutting me off from seeing my grandchild, but I don’t want to lose the right to take care of him. I just feel as her mother, every aching bone in my mommy-body says not to marry this guy,” she explained.  What to do?

I am reminded of the gospel from Matthew 22:1-14 which is the parable of the wedding feast.  A man sent out an invite to a big bash, fatted up his best calf, and sent out his servants–no BYOB necessary–to invite the guests to the feast. What happened? People were busy. They didn’t come.  He laid out the feast anyway, put it on the table, and in hopes of these amazing gifts not being wasted, the master said to his servants, something to the effect of “go get the good, bad and ugly and let them come and eat the grub.” (Yes, okay, totally my take on that). So these people come to the free party, and one guy shows up completely underdressed. It wasn’t like if you had a party and someone came in jeans. Apparently, at that time, not wearing a wedding garment would be like someone showing up at a funeral today in a “Tastes Great, Less Filling” t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. So not good. So the master, in all his generosity, free food, (very special occasion to him), says the guy has to go. We can understand why, right? He had total disregard for the gifts being offered to him, to the point of blatant offense. He may as well have had a fork in his hand and a napkin tucked around his neck, with rib sauce still on his face from the last free wedding he invaded.

My friend wants to be prepared for her daughter’s wedding day, even though she may not like the situation. This isn’t the “guest list”, the wedding feast, or the life that she wanted for her daughter. This isn’t the secure home and comfort (or even health insurance) that she wanted for her first grandchild. But at the end of the conversation, the solution was evident. “What will you do?” I asked tepidly. “Well,” she answered,”I went ahead and bought the dress.”

I heard that if you really want to get your head in gear for exercise and you have problems motivating yourself, go ahead and put on your athletic/workout clothes and you will feel compelled to work out. Life isn’t perfect, and neither are we. God doesn’t want perfection from us, and He figured out a LONG time ago that we aren’t capable of it, which is why He sent His son to help us out a bit. But the least we can do, is just buy the dress. And go ahead, put it on. That way, you may just feel compelled to prepare yourself for the feast.