The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-12, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 40."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

Answer

Well, my thoughts...of course I was standing in the back and I was thinking about an awful lot of things. I was thinking about letting her go. We love Mark and he’s a wonderful Christian guy and he fits into our family so well he’s just like one of our kids, so I wasn’t at all concerned about that. I knew that they were going up to serve the Lord together, and they do. He is director of Island Lake Christian Camp on the Puget Sound in Seattle and so they minister to people all week long in that camping setting. I wasn’t concerned about that, but I was just thinking about giving my daughter away, losing my daughter, and admittedly, I thought, you know, here you spend your entire life protecting the purity of your daughter and then one day you say, “Here, take her.” You know, that’s a traumatic thing for a father!

But I had those thoughts and to say what I was thinking about coming down the aisle… They gave us a cue, when we were supposed to start. Well, Marcy was standing back at the door and I was standing there with her and all of a sudden, she realized that she didn’t have her bouquet, her bridal bouquet. And so she just said, “Oh, I don’t have my flowers!” Well, as soon as she said that, the music started for us to go. So, there was the wedding hostess, Debbie Woodward--took off like a rocket clear across the patio to get to the bridal room to scoop the flowers up. Marcy was saying, “Hurry, hurry…” So we were in rather of a confused state. They had told us how long it would take to walk and how fast to walk. So, by the time Debbie came racing back to the door, panting, with these flowers and threw them into Marcy’s arms, she took my arm and all of a sudden turned around and smiled like nothing had happened. I didn’t know where I was in the music and that’s the truth. So I said to her, “I don’t know how long we have so let’s hurry.” So, all I was thinking of was getting down there as fast as I could and I got down here too soon. And so, everybody thought, what kind of an idiot is this guy? We went over again and again and again and nobody knew what was going on in the back--why is he here now? I just grinned, you know. Marcy and I knew. We were the only ones, along with Debbie.

But you know, I’ll tell you, it’s a great satisfaction when you know your daughter goes into a marriage pure, when she marries a young man who loves the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s sort of the culmination of the parenting process in a way, isn’t it? In fact, I remember when Matt married Kelly. We had this sense of rejoicing in how wonderful it was. Sort of a “Well, we got through with him and he married a Christian girl and that’s that” and then all of a sudden you wake up a little while later and they start having grandchildren and you realize “We’ve got to worry all over again. We’ve got a whole another generation coming along, only these we don’t any control over.” So you just have to continue to pray for the future.

But it was a very special, wonderful time for us, believe me, in every sense.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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