I got engaged 4 months ago, and all I’ve been able to think about since then is Christmas. Planning a December wedding does have the unfortunate side effect of having a Pinterest feed coated in red and greens in September! But on a deeper level, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the incarnation. 

Why? Because an engagement ring is love incarnate. 

Hear me out. 

Love starts out as a story. As a kid, it felt like a fantastical one– the hazy prince/hero/lead-of-whatever-book-I-was-reading emerging from the fog to sweep me away to a far off adventure. Frankly, I wasn’t too interested. And it all felt rather wistful and fictional anyways. 

Then I grew a bit older, and the story started to take a more concrete shape. I tried out a couple different faces on that mysterious hero, but none of them ever quite fit right. 

Then I met this guy. 

And the hazy story started to solidify into something that felt real. Something achievable. A story I increasingly wanted to claim as my own. Then there was the conversation where the “if”s started turning into “when”s. The dream fleshed out. Suddenly I could see it in full technicolor. We were at the ring shop, talking about cuts and sizes. I started making sure my nails were nice. The hazy hero had a face. I could see chapter one. 

But it was all still just a ‘what if’ to everyone else.

And then, all of a sudden there it was. The knee. The question. A night that still is a bit of a blur to be honest. And at the end of it, a sparkling ring on my finger. 

Months of dreaming. Years of imagining. A story that had only ever existed in words and hopes and fantasies. Suddenly it was tangible and real. Something I could wear on my hand. Friends and family could look and physically see that something was different about me. Twenty minute conversations explaining “how’s it going” suddenly could be condensed in the simple gesture of holding out my left hand. 

That ring is our story given flesh. Our love incarnate.

Two thousand years ago, a people held another story, featuring the hazy figure of a coming messiah. Formed by prophesies, clung to by each new generation–but it was just that: a story. The rest of the onlooking world pointed at this little nation with their one puny little God and laughed: “Where is your messiah?” “Aren’t you tired of holding onto that dream?” “It’s nothing but a fairy tale.”

Then a baby was born. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14a, ESV) There was tangible, physical proof that the story was real. Mary clothed him. The old prophet Simeon held him in his arms. Love incarnate, given flesh for us. 

And… nothing really changed (at first).

The day after my engagement, nothing was any different and yet everything had changed. My life is the same, but the countdown has started. The clock is now ticking. The end is in sight. 

We live in a waiting period. The “now and not yet.” We know the world is not as it should be. But the story has numbered days. We know the final outcome. The kingdom will come. The bridegroom will return. 

The wedding date is set. 

As each day goes by, more and more of my hazy dreams solidify. I know what my dress will look like. I know what the chapel will look like. I know what my bridesmaids will be wearing. Each decision brings an end to the dreaming and gives flesh to another piece of the story. 

And each day, I’m reminded that that is my job: to follow Christ’s example and give flesh to the Kingdom of God. I take the story passed down to me from my parents, grandparents, all the way back to the saints of old, and bit by bit I turn it into something real. 

Working for IDES, in particular, has given me an amazing perspective on this. Every day, I see the love of God given flesh, transformed into children fed, people clothed, and homes rebuilt. 

The kingdom of God gains flesh, becoming more real, and more visible each day. 

One day soon, I’ll stand in a chapel with a man, who is the answer to my childhood prayers in ways that I’m only starting to understand. The love first made manifest by that sparkling band will be fully realized, and we’ll start a new story together. 

And one day, perhaps a little farther away, I’ll stand in front of a city, in a world restored and renewed, and look out at a kingdom stretching as far as I can see, shining in light of my savior’s glory. And I’ll finally see the final words of the story that started with the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem. I’ll finally start a new story whose pages hold only joy, and whose chapters stretch on beyond eternity. 

And oh, what a day that will be. 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

(ESV, Revelation 21:1–2)