Maid of Honor words for the Bride

On behalf of my entire family, I would like to thank you all for coming again and celebrating this truly magical night with us.  We could not be more thrilled for Alison to have found Brian & to celebrate with them tonight.  Brian, we love you and are so thrilled you are a member of our family!  I know Julie and Ryan both feel like they won the "in law lottery" by having you join them! I would also like to thank my parents.  You two have raised the 3 of us to believe in marriage, that it works, that it is an adventure and that with a little hard work you can stay married to your best friend for a lifetime.  You have changed our lives and multiplied our joy in thousands of ways, but my favorite has been watching you love each other and seeing that love extend into our lives and our own families.  You are both a blessing there are no words for and we are extremely grateful.  

Now for those who don’t know me, I am the oldest of the Richard children and we are all spaced almost 2 years apart exactly.  Ali, Andy & I all fell in with stereo typical birth order personalities browning up, I being rule following, color in the lines 1^st born…Andy had all the markings of a wild middle child and being the only boy in the family highlighted these qualities…and then came Alison.  Our baby.  And she is our family’s baby in every sense of the word expect in if you are using as a adjective, because in that case she is anything but.  When Alison was 3 months old my mother found herself staring down at her sweet new baby surrounded with tubes, monitors & doctors.  Meningitis.  And after days in 2 different hospitals, a seizure and a wait and see what happens prognosis from the doctors…itsy bitsy Alison pulled up and out of a nightmare and headed back home to be with us.  Whew!  Crisis averted.  Childhood illness scare crossed off the list.  But if we fast-forward not even 2 years in her storyline we find Ali back at the doctors.  This time at a Children’s Hospital in Chicago where the doctors are trying to explain to my parents that elderly people are not the only ones getting diagnosed with arthritis.  Ali, their sweet & snugly toddler was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which meant a long and unknown road of shots, medication, therapy sessions, doctors and specialists, braces for the knees and wrists and some pretty sobering news in respect to her mobility in the years to come.  Doctors advised my parents that most likely Ali would be very limited in what activities her body would be able to tolerate.  But once again, our little Ali didn’t conform to the standards of any diagnosis.  Limited is not a word she’s ever understood.  She played traveling soccer and joined me for basketball camp.  She swam and ran and jumped along with every other kid.  She was never not right in the mix.  In high school she was more than determined to make the dance team, but a requirement to even try out was the splits.  My parent’s stomachs churned with anxiety knowing how much she wanted to make the dance team and also the condition of her joints.  My dad remembers walking up the stairs at night seeing Ali stretched out in the hallway willing her legs to lay flat for weeks before the tryout.  Now if any of you have been out with my sister where dancing is occurring, you know how this story ends up.  At the end of high school Ali had been a member of the dance team all 4 years.  At every turn she has never ceased to amaze us.  She has never stopped because someone said she should, she has hustpa!, she is brave; she has a fight in her.  God’s got plans for this girl.  And part of that plan was to work in my life.  There’s a chance, it’s small, but there’s a chance that if Ali wasn’t a part of my life I may still be wearing sweatshirts with cats on them.  Thankfully at a young age, she put the kibosh on any animal attire and my wardrobe made great strides because of her keen fashion sense and also extreme dislike for anything momish I may consider.  Ali is also one of those rare people that I can laugh for so hard and so long that tears run down my face and my stomach hurts so bad I can’t remember if we have been laughing or if I got punched.  As an adult, I don’t think laughter always comes as easy, but with Ali, it’s seems we have never left childhood.  She is witty and smart and funny and I have got a front row seat to her very humorous show.  And 13 years ago when I was diagnosed with diabetes, I couldn’t help but look at the way Ali has lived…without an “illness title”, without boundaries, without voices saying NO.  And in the years since I have looked to her and channeled my inner Ali when I come up against a wall.  You are amazing sister, and although I am the older of the siblings, you have inspired me, challenged me and changed my life.  I am so thankful and blessed that the Lord saw fit for us to be sisters.

All that being said, what kind of older sister would I be without just a little bit of advice or wisdom for my baby sister on her wedding day??!!??  First I have to share some life/marriage wisdom from one of the smartest and longest married guys in this room, my Grandpa, Bill Sapp.  Now if you are a Sapp, you have heard this story a million times but I would be remiss not to share it since were talking about marriage.  The story goes like this.  Bill was flying on a plane and chatting with a woman sitting next to him and they got to taking about marriage.  She asked my grandpa his thoughts, and he told her “there are 2 BIG decisions in every persons life.  The first is whether you choose Jesus as your Lord and Savior, because that determines whether you spend eternity in heaven or hell.  The 2^nd is who you choose to marry, because that determines whether your life here on earth is heaven or hell!”  

As for my thoughts on marriage itself, I don't know everything there is to know nor have I lived through all there is but I will tell you what has been my experience and what I pray will be yours.  Today, on your wedding day you stood at an alter with each other and made promises and looked into each others eyes and will dance and hug and celebrate tonight away together.  And I am sure as soon as you are able to process it all you will think, this is the best.  

And suddenly life will move, seasons will change, time will charge forward.  You will find yourself perched on the front porch of your first home.  You will clink glasses as you celebrate a promotion or graduation.  You will laugh till you cry over inside jokes and silly texts and nights with great friends.  You will see the other one with their arms wrapped around a baby that is part you & part the other and there you will be, smack dab in the middle of joy and you will think, this is the best.

And somewhere in between all the joy, smiles & happy memories there is another side.  There will be disappointment.  There will be fighting and frustration.  There will be a job lost or a dream that you had to let sail away.  There might be sickness or challenges that you can't possible imagine.  And there will be tears and sadness, but then there will be arms that find you and pick you up.  There is someone right next to you who knows what you need to take on your demons and says nothing when you just need to be held.  So you don't feel alone, and you have someone fighting along side you( and sometimes with you) and you will think, this is the best.

And the truth, at least for me has been that being married is the best.  The joy in my life is multiplied, the struggles are fought with more force because their are two of us with one goal, the times when it get rough between us only makes it sweeter when we come out on the other side. There is nothing like sharing a life with someone and experiencing all that it has to offer together.  Most importantly though, is the way that being married asks us to be unselfish and put someone before ourselves and in doing life within a marriage you get the privilege of knowing and understanding a little more about the God of the universe who lavishly loves us, who put himself second and laid down his life for us and who created man and woman for each other and declared it good.  With a little work and some perspective being married is truly the best!

So please raise your glasses with me, first to Alison…may the God given drive and fight in you be used for the rest of your life to fight for this man, your new husband Brian, your new life and family and your faith which will cement it all together.

And To Ali & Brian...may you have a lifetime of days, good, bad and everything in between where you look at each other and know that you are living in the best and that you truly have chosen heaven on earth!

Cheers!