Nathan Kingsbury and Sarah Stueder were wed on Saturday, September 24th, at Immaculate Conception Church in Claflin, KS. Their pastor Father Terrance Klein presided.
Sarah is the daughter of Alan and Rita Stueder. Nathan, the son of Cindy Madden and the late Dennis Kingsbury.
Cindy Stueder, Sarah's sister, was the Maid of Honor and James Colombo and Seth Morse, friends of Nate's, were the best men.
Emily Ney was the vocalist and Bernie Hoffman the organist. Grant Miller, originally from Claflin, was the lector.
| Miracles Are Made by Wonder | Wedding of Nathan & Sarah |
| Terrance Klein | 24.IX.2022 Immaculate Conception Church |
Song of Songs 2: 8-10, 14, 16a; 8: 6-7a Hebrews 13:1-4a, 5-6b Matthew 7:21, 24-29
Miracles aren’t made by defying the laws of nature. God doesn’t need to abrogate them. What we call the laws of nature are no more than regularly observed and related phenomena. Our reason correctly connects them, but nothing necessarily guarantees their continuance. They’re held in existence by a mind much greater than our own.
No, miracles are made by wonder. It’s a quality that we see in them, what we might call a mark of God. For example, if souls, long estranged, reconcile, we call it a miracle. If someone finds resolve and even greater endurance during an incredible hardship, we call it a miracle. How it happens—what laws of nature appear to be broken—isn’t the productive question. The more fruitful question is why.
Miracles are also not made by the mind-blowing. As C.S. Lewis pointed out long ago, if your mind is closed to wonder, it won’t be blown. You may see Christ in the sky above Claflin, without the possibility any doubt, yet the next day you can explain away the event just by challenging your own memory.
Miracles are made by wonder. We see something; we understand that it didn’t need to be; and so we realize that we have received a gift. And that means there’s a giver.
What do you remember about your first date? That was the question posed. Sarah wrote:
I remember having a great conversation and feeling comfortable talking to him right from the beginning. We sat and conversed for a long time.
I will also say that our second date is still one of my favorites. We didn’t get to go to dinner as we had originally planned, but we got to drive and to talk. I feel that this was when we really started to open-up and get to know each other better.
There’s an eerie—the better word is wonderful—congruence in Nate’s recollection of that same first date:
I remember making her giggle and I remember we never looked at our phones. I left knowing that I was going to marry her.
Miracles aren’t made by defying nature. They’re made by wonder. We see something; we understand that it didn’t need to be; and so we comprehend that we have received a gift, which means there’s a giver.
You can still hear the sheer wonder of love in this passage from the Song of Songs:
Hark! My lover—here he comes
Springing across the mountains,
Leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
Or a young stag.
Every marriage, every true and lasting love, is a miracle, a work of God. What laws of nature bring two people together? And how does their love grow over time, when the norm of nature is that all things diminish in time?
Nate’s mom Cindy put it so well when she wrote:
In my spiritual thoughts, I feel that the opportunity to find love and choose to spend one’s life with another is one of the finest gifts given to us. I also believe that nothing in this life comes from coincidence. All things occur for a given reason even if we do not find ourselves graced with awareness of that reason. What a glory to be blessed with someone to share in our earthly journey.
A miracle isn’t made by defying the laws of nature. It’s a gift of wonder. Not every man and woman come before the altar of God when they marry. Nate and Sarah are here because they recognize that their love didn’t need to be; that it’s wonderful, that it’s a gift. So, they beseech the giver of all good gifts to be with them, to bless them as a couple, and to make their love fruitful.
Nathan and Sarah are here because they want to build a home of love. They recognize that if that love is to flourish it must rest upon something greater than itself. It must be built upon the rock of love that we call our Lord.
And finally, Nate and Sarah are here because they recognize that love defies all laws of nature. It doesn’t exhaust itself. The more it gives, the more it has. Love is of God.
♥ ♥ ♥
