At my house we’re putting the finishing touches on plans for a wedding that will take place this August, when Louisa marries Teddy – our third family wedding in 12 months.

Nelson married Ann Sophie last August in Hawaii (right), and Birgitta married Spencer last November in Iowa (below), which adds up to three.

If I count my brother’s son Charlie and his bride Larissa (married in May), my nephew Karl and his Cecilia (also in May), and Tom’s son Ben with his Amy (this July), the family wedding count rises to six – one every other month.

Weddings can be expensive, and it’s a pleasure to watch these “kids” make economical wedding decisions. But there’s one family wedding that takes the cake in the budgeting department.

Our daughter Linnea met Adam (below) when both were serving in Youth With A Mission. Love blossomed, and he presented her with a ring on a snowy winter afternoon in Montana, in 2003.

Both were students there at an intensive YWAM Bible school when Linnea called us to share their big news. We were thrilled, already loving Adam, but we wondered how in the world we’d ever pay for a wedding.

Our family was in the midst of a rapid financial downturn due to some governmental tax law changes that destroyed Nate’s once-thriving business. By then we were struggling to pay our own bills, much less those of a wedding.

On the phone that night when Linnea asked how much we had in our “wedding account,” Nate looked at me and held up his finger and thumb in the sign of a zero.

We told Linnea the truth, that there was no wedding account, and when the conversation ended, both she and I were in tears. I pictured Adam standing with his arm around her, whispering comfort into her misery… and I felt awful.

Our daughter was suffering, too, and we longed to do something about it. She closed that conversation with, “Can we talk about this again tomorrow?”

As soon as we hung up, we began asking God to rescue us. Almost right away he reminded us of a song that says, “God will make a way, when there seems to be no way.” In this case, there really was no way. Though we wanted to believe he could and maybe even would make a way, we sure couldn’t imagine how. But if Linnea was going to have a wedding, it would have to be his doing.

“The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.” (Psalm 32:10)

(…to be continued)