For Tim and Emily's 15th Anniversary

As some of you know, over the years I have written poems for friends' birthdays, graduations, baptisms, and weddings. I even have a site, theweddingpoet.com, on which I bill my talents and services.

Following is a poem I wrote for my friend Tim and his wife, Emily, for their 15th anniversary. I am including this here to show that I can adapt my style and my perspective to echo the world view of the poem's recipients. Tim and Emily are very Christian-oriented with a conservative, though still loving, philosophy. If you look at the sample poems on theweddingpoet.com, you'll see that those posted are sexier and more playful. But this style seemed to suit Tim and Emily better. After interviewing Tim, I created this poem for them:

The Hand of God

for Tim and Emily on their 15th wedding anniversary, Aug. 28, 2008

How foolishly we go about our busy lives,
focusing on bills and deadlines,
little dramas and big,
thinking that we mortals make things happen,
that we control how each moment will unfold.
But Tim and Emily smile at a deeper truth,
seeing the hand of God
behind all their blessings.

More than two decades ago,
Tim was a high school grad,
eager to start his first semester in Texas.
But in a dream, angels whispered to him,
“Good things await you at UOP.”
Unlike so many of us
when our inner knowing points the way,
Tim didn’t second guess this heavenly nudge
but promptly told his befuddled mother
of his change in plans.

For his first few years in southern Cal,
he might have wondered, Why am I here?
But God doesn’t work according to our schedule,
but in accordance with His own mysterious plan.
Eventually, the hand of God led Emily to Tim
or vice-versa.
Tim pinned three gold roses to Emily’s breast,
their initials entwined,
their love sealed in a pin.
A coincidence, some might say,
a young man’s silly whim.
But Tim and Emily recognized the hand of God,
guiding a No Cal boy south
and keeping a So Cal girl close to home.

Tim prayed, “If Emily is the one,
please prepare a clear path for us, O Lord.”
God spoke to him through a stirring in his soul,
the hand of His heavenly Father
upon his shoulder:
“The path is before you, my son.
Take the next step.”

Tim then turned to Emily’s father on Earth
to ask for her hand in marriage,
a tradition stretching back to Abraham’s days,
a very long line of yesses
to which Emily added one more.

By water and jungle and lava flow,
Tim asked Emily to be his bride.
Beams of sunlight set her face aglow
as she, too, said “yes.”
The hand of God-as-Artist
painted a spectacular scene
on which the moment played out
to the glee of their captain and fellow boaters.

From this love have come three children,
the three gold roses on Emily’s pin come to life
in Jillian, Madison and Dutch.
A coincidence, you say.
Three, a common number, you scoff.
But Tim and Emily look into each other’s eyes
and give a wink.
For surely it was the hand of God,
all these many years ago,
that urged Tim to buy that pin
and not another with a single rose
or with two, one to symbolize him
and one for Emily.
Instead the hand of God was at work,
and the voice of God said,
“Choose this one, my son.
Three, you know, is a sacred number in heaven,
and for you and Emily so will it be on Earth.”