Hubby and I collapsed, exhausted, into bed at the end of a miracle-filled wedding day!
We were both so wiped out we fell into a deep sleep!
Somewhere deep in my sleep I heard an urgent, intense sound! It was a sound which I had never heard before! It was almost as if an urgent bell-like ringing sound! Urgent! Persistent!
In my sleep, my “blink” reaction was: “It’s Jesus! Oh Yay! It’s Jesus! Jesus has come back!”
I fully expected to be swept up out of my bed and up into the sky to meet Jesus in the air!
But instead, my body remained right where it was in bed … and the intense, urgent bell-like ringing sound persisted!
My mind slowly registered: “That’s not a trumpet sound.”
“If it’s not a trumpet sound, then it must not be Jesus.” I realized with great disappointment.
The intense!, urgent! bell-like ringing finally pulled hubby and I back to consciousness … and we both realized it was hubby’s work phone. Hubby had been paged-out for an important outage problem.
The week leading up to the wedding, hubby had been on-call (all the way up until today in fact). And in God’s loving kindness to us, hubby had not actually been paged-out … at all … until several hours after the wedding excitement was over.
Being awakened suddenly from a deep sleep, it takes a little bit to get your mind back … to figure out where exactly you are, and what day it is, and what exactly is going on.
It was so real to me how I had truly thought Jesus had come back for us!
We had just had a wedding … and a wedding is God’s own picture of Jesus coming for his bride (all who love and follow Him!).
As hubby got up to work the important outage problem, I pondered how the suddenness of the wedding we had just had in our backyard is a lot like the suddenness of Jesus coming for his bride!
All who love and follow Jesus Christ are referred to, in the Bible, as the Bride of Christ. If you love and follow Jesus Christ, then you are part of the Bride of Christ.
The groom, from the wedding in our backyard, purchased a house last August and has been diligently preparing a place for his bride!
The happy couple has been engaged for several months. But no wedding date had been set.
The announcement of a wedding date was very sudden!
In the “blink of an eye” the suddenness of preparing for a wedding in 1 ½ weeks went by in a flash!
In the “blink of an eye” the day of the wedding went by in a flash!
The groom led his new bride through the joyful, cheering, sparkler-lined pathway and helped her into his car.
Then off they drove … the groom taking his new bride to the home he had prepared for her!
“In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” – 1 Corinthians 15:52
“For the Lord himself [Jesus Christ!] will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
Jesus said: “Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many dwellings places; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to be with me, that where I am, there you may be also.” – John 14:1-3
