February 7 – “A Few Minutes”

No plumbers.  But our contractor did call to say they were due to start next week.  He also said he was going to tell the electricians to start as well.  He said we should be ready for sheetrock by the end of February.    I presided over a fifteen year vows renewal at the San Luis Hotel tonight.  It turned out to be quite an ordeal.  It was to be a big surprise for the wife.  The husband had arranged everything with the hotel wedding coordinator.  She's the one who called me.  All I had to do was go to the desk and tell them I needed them to call the husband.  I checked in as instructed, but they had no one by that name registered.  They called the coordinator at home and gave me the phone.  My bad.  I had the wrong name.  She gave me the room number and said to have them call that room, but only talk of the man answers.  When they looked up that room number, though, there was a different person registered in it.  Now they really didn't know what to do.  They called the coordinator back, then made three or four other calls.  They told me they would have to run it down and try to find him.  About ten minutes later a guy walked up to me and asked if I was Kelley Vaughan.  Someone found him.   Hi wife was having her hair done.  He apologized and asked if I could wait until she got ready.  He said they had been stuck in traffic around Baybrook Mall for four hours.  We walked over to the counter so I could give him my cell number.  He was going to call me when she was ready.  As we turned around the wife walked up.  She apparently has some kind of radar on him.  Anyway, I faked it.  I said, "We just struck up a conversation.  He was interested in talking to a local."  She was totally buying it.  Then he choked.  Froze up.  Nothing would come out of his mouth.  Finally he introduced me and said, "He's a pastor and he's going remarry us in a few minutes.  As soon as you get ready."  She looked at him, then me, then back at him.  She said, "Are you serious?"  and looked to me for confirmation.  I nodded as he started into this long explanation of what had happened.  She never heard a word past "He's going to remarry us in a few minutes."  She finally interrupted his explanation attempt and said, "You did this for me?"  She hugged him and began to cry.  Wisely, he shut up.  Then she looked back at me and said, "A few minutes?"    Almost an hour later they finally called and told me to come on up to their room.  We got the ceremony done, and they are destined for fifteen more years of wedded bliss.    Genesis 2:24 says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."   Father, thank you for that couple's fifteen years.  Thank you for our thirty-three.  Amen.