Barbershop Musings

I went to the barbershop yesterday. I needed a trim. I arrived a few minutes early, and found myself chatting up Mindy the Barber and her two customers. Mindy is great. She loves to talk up our city, and this time with two Floridians in town with a cruise ship.

The son was in the barber chair; Dad sitting nearby. Our shared conversation started with the weather (as does every conversation around here). We then moved on to the highs (natural beauty) and lows (the price of property) of living in Juneau. And then, somehow the conversation topic moved on to the subject of marriage.

I mentioned I was soon to leave town for my daughter's wedding in California; hence the obligatory haircut. After expressing their congratulations the son in the chair asked me if this was my daughter's "starter marriage." While stifling my initial indignation I responded with a resounding "Nope." I then countered with a short treatise of my daughter's love for her future husband, and my future son-in-law's love for my daughter. (They're both immanently lovable, by the way!)

This morning I find myself musing over that conversation. Today (June 20) is our 31st wedding anniversary. (Deb and I will celebrate later, as always it seems.) Our own marriage is a picture to me of God's steadfast covenant love. (And I am well aware I married "up," out of my league.) My daughter and youngest child will become a Missus come this Saturday, and this fresh new marriage speaks to me of God's redemptive love. My own parents, who have enjoyed a 50-plus year marriage, are an incredible example to me of God's changeless love.

It will be my joy to walk my daughter down the aisle this Saturday. How I will do that while still wrapped tightly around her little finger is beyond me, since that's where I've been since the day she first showed up.

And I will praise my heavenly Father for the love He shows me in so many tangible and intangible ways. It is this same love I want other people in Juneau know first-hand as well.