Father's Day

It just hit me that the first day of our "wedding week" is Father's Day.

The first real sentence I remember uttering after the doctor said they had done everything they could was, "I needed him to walk me down the aisle."

It was just after midnight on September 21, 2006, that my dad (known to most as "Louie") left this world. The events of that night changed a lot of things, but my heart sank knowing that he really wouldn't be there on my wedding day. For years after he died, I wondered what it would be like when I met "the one" - and what would it be like when I had to get married without my daddy there to give me away.

Now I know. Well, I know what it's like up to this point.

I knew Blake was the one when I took him out to my dad's grave just weeks after we began dating. I told him the story of my dad's life, and of his death. Blake listened as we sat on the tombstone bearing my father's family name. I couldn't help but think of just how much my dad would like Blake. They would have so much in common - both history lovers, intelligent, kind, a little goofy. And now I think of just how much like my dad I am... and I think Blake would have liked my dad, too. :)

Tomorrow will be bittersweet, as will the wedding day. But I will never forget how much my dad loved me, and I can only imagine how proud he would have been to send me off with such a great husband. :)

And, these sweet verses that I have prayed over and over again are a reminder of God's promises fulfilled in my life: "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. For he sets the lonely in families, he sends forth prisoners with singing." ~ Psalm 68:5-6