Anna's Wedding

Last night, we attended the wedding of Holly's best friend, Anna.

Holly and Anna were "randomly" chosen as roommates their freshman year at Ouachita Baptist University. I've got "randomly" in quotes, because while it might look random...it was most definitely a God-thing. We do have a friend who works at OBU...she and another girl were working to find a good roommate for Holly...and for all of the other incoming freshmen who didn't have roommates. They came up with a couple of different girls, but it wasn't working out with either of them, for whatever reason.

And then there was Anna.

Her roommate situation had just fallen through, and the staff was looking for a compatible person for her to live with.

I'm sure it's like this at many schools, but at OBU...back in the dark ages when I went there...they had you fill out a questionnaire about yourself...your beliefs, likes, dislikes, habits...things like that. And then the registration staff would try to match you with someone who was suitable. My answers were all pretty generic, but I do remember on one part of it that I put that I liked chocolate-chip cookies. Later, when I talked with my roommate...after we had become friends and all...she mentioned that she put THE EXACT SAME THING.

A God-thing.

Back to Holly and Anna. I remember the day we first met them...we went to the Cracker Barrel in Bryant, Arkansas and had dinner with their family. We were eye-balling them, and they were eye-balling us. I guess we must've passed the test, which was amazing if you consider that I have 3 rowdy boys...(well, two rowdy boys...Joshua's not rowdy)...and they had these two beautiful and well-mannered daughters and a handsome and well-mannered son. We made a "date" to meet up with them and shop for bedding, and that is still one of the most fun days of my life. I think I probably freaked them out, because, like Holly tells me all the time, "MOM...people who don't know you...don't "get" your humor."

I'll admit it...I find humor in weird things, and I laugh...a LOT. My sense of humor is something I picked up from my mom, and have passed down (hopefully) to my children. Both of my sisters, and my one brother, are all really funny...

Looking.

I'M KIDDING.

I just know that God has used my sense of humor to sustain me in many times in my life that were very sad...or scary...or serious.

We moved Holly and Anna into their dorms on a hot day in August. We filled up two cars, our Burb plus Holly's car. There was NO WAY all of Holly's stuff was going to fit into a dorm room...must less Holly AND ANNA's stuff.

But it did.

I remember sitting on the floor in their room...boxes everywhere. You couldn't even walk. The room looked like the pink-orange-purple-and-lime-green section at Bed, Bath and Beyond had exploded in there. Anna's mother and grandmother were lamenting the fact that the curtains they made didn't fit the window, and they vowed to make another pair and come back with some that did. Jim, and Anna's dad, were practically hanging upside-down on a shelf...trying to hook up the tv and all the cables and the string of pink Christmas lights that one of the girls had brought. Anna was pulling things out of a box like it was the first time she had ever seen them. At one point she yelled, "OHHHH...MY....GOSH!" We all stopped, because it scared us to death...and we all looked at Anna to see what had happened. Was she hurt? Anna holds up a pair of scissors and says, "these scissors ALMOST cut my hand off."

And that's how Anna died.

*Because Jim flew off the shelf and told her in no uncertain terms to cut the drama and unpack those boxes and let's get on with it because unless something actually did cut her hand completely off...we all have other things to do and other places to be.

I'M KIDDING.

He didn't say anything like that. We all just laughed, and I wondered how and if my slow-moving, drama-avoiding girl was going to survive in all of this. I looked over at Holly. In the middle of all the chaos...the cable wires, the tools, the boxes, the bedding, curtains and supplies...she is ever so slowly and carefully putting her pencils in her desk. ONE AT A TIME.

And that's how Holly died.

Because...*see above paragraph.

But Holly and Anna became best friends. They roomed together their freshman and senior years. They were sorority sisters. They graduated from college together. Three years ago, Anna was Holly's maid of honor in her wedding...and last night, Holly stood on the stage with Anna, as she pledged her love and life to her new husband.

And as I looked around the reception tent last night, I thought of how GOD has orchestrated and planned out the past 7 years, and I was overwhelmed with gratefulness.

"...surely just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand." Isaiah 14:24