Doves
I looked at myself in the mirror and frowned. What would my mother say if she saw me in a floral dress that not only exposed my whole ankle, but also my lower calf? And that I had shaved my leg hair off? My mom always told me that there is a God and I am not Him. God decides where hair grows, not me. I heard Tim’s familiar knock on the door and went to open it. He was dressed in a tux, which was so tight around his biceps that it looked like a seam was going to pop. Tim could never find shirts that were lose around his biceps and often reinforced the seams with fishing line to keep them from breaking. When he saw me, he gasped. “Mary Grace, you are beautiful! I mean, it’s your heart for the Lord that I most love, but wow. You look like you stepped right off the pages of one of you Puritan Romance Novels!” I blushed and folded my arms across my chest. It was my duty as a Christian woman to fight for Tim’s purity. Purity is never an accident. I looked past him at the elm tree in my front yard. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The tree looked like it was covered in snow, even though it was an unseasonably warm November day. The whiteness seemed to move and sway, even though there was no wind. “Doves,” Tim said. “They’re doves. They’ve been following me around all day.” He looked over his shoulder at them and shrugged. “This happens to me sometimes. Let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.” We were headed to Tom and Gisele’s ultra-secret vow-renewal ceremony. They’d carefully hid their brief separation from the paparazzi and were renewing their vows during the Patriot’s bye week. Tom wanted Tim by his side, and Tim will do anything for a friend. “So is Kirk leading the ceremony like you’d hoped?” If anybody had the respect of A-list celebrities, it was Kirk Cameron. While he was reluctant to accept the role, all of Hollywood had anointed him to be their chaplain. Tim shook his head. “No, I brought Curly up to him, but Tom had already asked Rob Bell.” We rode in silence for a few miles as it settled in. With my shaved legs and now Rob Bell, things were moving much too fast for me. Tim finally broke the silence. “Remember when we first started dating, and we almost ended it because I read the NIV? Or when you caught me humming a U2 song? Or the time I ‘liked’ that article on Facebook about the new Pope?” His voice softened. “We’ve already been through so much. We can get through this.” I had been staring at my hairless ankles when I looked outside. “The doves are following us.” I said, and I knew everything was going to be ok.