There was something incredibly different about this wedding than any other I've been to before. In Mizoram, once the bride price has been paid and the vows have been taken, the Bride belongs to the Groom and his family. She's encouraged to not go home and is now required to do a lot of the housework in taking care of the husband's family.
Mami is very well educated and works for the UN. Her family is quite well off and they have always had servants that do a lot of the work in their house. In a lot of Mizo families, the new bride is required to do a lot of the cooking and if she has a job, the majority of what she makes must be given to her new family. She will now stay in his family's home with his parents and extended family. She is required to give up a lot of her rights and freedom to go where she wants, when she wants.
After the reception, there is a procession where a group of her friends and family take her to his home and now her place is with them. Her parents are not allowed to go. As she was leaving the reception, her mom came up to me weeping, and held me tightly. She started talking to me about how Mami had lived with them for 34 years and how it's hard to picture their lives without her and the weight of the separation hit me deeply.
I've heard many songs about Psalm 45 and somehow being a part of this family and this wedding celebration, it hit me in a different way. "Listen O daughter, consider and incline your ear; Forget your own people, and your father's house; So the King will greatly desire your beauty; Because He is your Lord, worship Him." (vs. 10-11)
She is really supposed to forget her father's home, a place where she has known great love and comfort and trust that her new husband and family will love her and take care of her. The weight of it hit me because Mami has so much to give up. In Mizo culture, she has had relative freedom in how she lives her life. She has had servants taking care of her, a lucrative career, a family that loves her deeply and now for love, she is laying all of that down, for an unsure, perhaps less comfortable life. As we watched her on that day though, there was no regret on her face, for she is deeply loved by Robert.
Again, the weight of the event pierced my heart. She had counted all the costs and burned the bridges and all other choices; she has chosen life with him whatever that may hold. Marriage is truly a picture of our walk with God. He desires our love and affection with jealousy and zeal. Over and over again we come to a place in this life where we have to choose between Him and lesser loves. His love is worth so much more than security and comfort, than money and influence. A life with Him is of much greater value than anything this age has to offer. There is nothing to compare with the freedom of a heart that is soaring in love, walking in whole-hearted obedience to Him and His ways. Nothing. To abandon your rights to everything, time, money, hopes, dreams, health, comfort, personal rights- to lay all of these things down for the sake of love, trusting His heart, committing our souls into HIs hands. I am never more alive than when I am wholly His, holding nothing back.
"And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."
Heb.11:15-16
