I tried to capture every detail in my memory. Twenty-three years later, I still carry many of them. I remember turning back to my brothers just before the door opened, to pump a victory fist at them. I remember how the church seemed darker and warmer than I expected; I wondered whether they dimmed the lights a little for the wedding service that evening. I remember being nervous about the soles of my shoes as Christine and I kneeled to take communion. I remember looking into her beautiful face as she said her vows to me. I remember all the precautions that were taken to protect the reception – partly outdoors – from the chill of Arizona’s December air. Those steps were unnecessary; it was a stunning evening. We felt divinely warmed and protected that night.

By early afternoon on the day of the next really big wedding of our lives – just a few weeks ago, as I write this – it had begun to rain. The wedding was planned for outdoors. Many people were praying that the rain would cease. The organizers called: Did we want to move the ceremony indoors?

Hours later, I felt conspicuously honored, standing among eight beautiful women – three of them, my daughters. The few moments as we waited to begin the ceremony seemed eternal, but not an eternity I wished to see end.

I wanted her to have the same dear memories as I had. I kissed her hand.
“Carissa, look at me.” When she did, her green eyes melted me, just as they always have, since her birth.

“Sweetheart, this is your day. You are only going to do this once. Savor every detail. Enjoy this with all of your heart. You’re doing a wonderful thing. You’re marrying a good man. Nothing bad can happen to you today. Don’t be nervous.”
When our moment came, Carissa and I walked out into glorious sunlight. As I walked with her down the aisle, any departure from the complete perfection of that moment was lost to me.

Later, Carissa told me that she had been a nervous wreck that day – until I told her not to worry. After that, she was calm and completely resolved to enjoy her wedding day. (I am always astonished when people actually take my advice – something I usually don’t bother to do.)

Eight years ago, though, Carissa hated me for making us move across the country. The first year in Virginia was tough. She and her sisters missed California terribly. If Mom and Dad were so convinced that “God wanted us to move,” then how come they were so miserable?

But within a few more months, Carissa said an amazing thing to me. She had decided that our move was a good thing. After all, she would probably meet her future husband in Virginia.

And she did – at a fraternity party on her first day at college. The first thing Jason Baldwin said to her was, “Hello, beautiful.” The second thing: “I’m going to marry you.” Four years later, he did. During the ceremony, Pastor Joel said that Carissa and Jason were two people that God had clearly brought together. Just then, Bethany leaned over to her sister, Kate, and whispered, “I didn’t know God uses keggers.”

But of course, God does use keggers. He uses circumstance. He uses accidents too – at least, as we perceive them. He works in the fine details, crafting His sublime role in the free-will waltz between man and God, where man’s will is genuinely free, yet God’s will is somehow completely compelling.

When Kate was just a toddler, Christine had to work an overnight shift at the hospital. I ran the household with my usual libertarian open hand, so when Kate showed some interest in my dinner – Pizza Hut Thin-’N-Crispy Pepperoni – I was glad to share some with her, even though she was just barely eating solid food. I cut some pizza into tiny pieces and fed them to Kate. Her mouth really enjoyed the treat. But a few hours later, her stomach got to weigh in on the matter.

I did three loads of laundry that night, just from changing the sheets on her bed. Since then, Kate has never liked spicy foods of any kind. She is so sensitive, that she can’t stand the taste of carbonated soft drinks; as a child, she said the bubbles were “spiky.” I’ve often wondered if Kate’s sensitivity might protect her from worse things – perhaps, I hoped, the cough-syrup taste of alcohol or the pungent stench of marijuana.

Could the pepperoni effect be that strong? Can the tiny details we overlook end up as life-changing events? After all, what if Carissa had decided to skip that fraternity party?

Like most Christians, I’ve sensed God at work countless times in my life – subtle, warm, touching – the way one recognizes an old friend’s voice over the phone. Many times, those startling moments were hidden away in the details – the subtle answer to prayer or the unusual blessing while on assignment. Even struggles and disappointments, examined closely, seemed to bear His touch.

My brother-in-law might be the most talented pilot since Orville Wright. But he was fired by Osama Bin Laden, swept away with a generation of young pilots in the downturn of the airline industry following September 11. After more than a year of waiting to be re-hired as a pilot, he has begun his second career, this one bound to the earth. September 11 was a crushing blow to the economy, which also distorted well-established giving patterns. Nonprofits are all feeling the pain. Right now, several good friends – talented people, dedicated believers – are unemployed because the Christian organizations they worked for had to cut back.

When God is so active in blessing my life – so richly detailing the minutia with subtle color – how can He seem to be missing from the big canvas? I can see Him so clearly around me. But when there seems to be so much pain, why can’t I see Him elsewhere?

At Carissa’s wedding reception, the groomsmen were marking territory on the dance floor, dancing to hip-hop music. Someone offered me $100 (money I’ll never actually see) to go out and dance. I took off my coat and strode onto the floor. After flailing around for a few minutes, I walked off to the roar of the crowd – a greater testament to their good humor than their taste in dance.

I wonder if my complaints to God might look as silly to Him as my flailing my arms on that dance floor.

In Job, Chapter 38 and 39, God responds to Job’s complaints with an answer that rings for us as well: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

How can I possibly have the perspective to see God at work on the big canvas? I see God at work in my life all the time – at least when I’m aware enough to look – because my life is the part of the canvas that I get to see. For the rest, it’s just dots of color. I can’t see the whole picture.

As a sophomore in college, I worked part time for a commercial photographer in Tucson. One day, I was given my first aerial assignment, to photograph a local hospital under construction. Although I’d rarely been in a small plane, I landed feeling good about the results.

One problem: I’d shot the wrong construction project. Had the client been the commercial development down the street, I’d have nailed it. But the hospital? Not a frame. Desperate, I risked my life by climbing up a nearby water tower to try to get an aerial view. But it didn’t work. I had plenty of detail, but my perspective was not high enough. And if you can’t get high enough to see from the right perspective, then you miss the picture.

The father of the bride has one other ritual role at a wedding: dancing with his daughter. The song I chose was sweet: Kenny Loggins’ Only a Miracle. The song describes a man who had grown so cynical that only a miracle could straighten out his life – a miracle he sees in the birth of his first child. When Carissa was growing up, I used to sing this song to her.

As Carissa and I danced, money was changing hands with side bets about whether I would make it through the song without crying. When we reached one line – “and when I held you, I held a miracle in my hands” – Carissa burst into tears. I moistened, but not enough to lose my status as a guy.

Holding her that first time so many years ago did seem like a miracle, but no more so than seeing our daughters – all three of them – grow into fine young women who each knows the Lord, despite the failings of our bad-pepperoni parenting. No more than her recognizing as a teenager that God might be at work even in a move that she hated. No more than any time we can see Him in the details, making up for our jerky flailings with His own graceful countersteps of providence and circumstance. The confidence of the miracles we can see give us reason to believe in the ones we cannot.

And that makes our dances beautiful.