I have rarely been accused of having great timing.
Unless it was said sarcastically.
Case in point — I was a student at Southern Miss and a certain young lady had caught my eye. I thought she was a stunningly beautiful blonde. We sang together in a multi-person vocal group through a ministry on campus, and she and I frequently talked as we hung out with others in this ministry.
I was hesitant to ask her out for a couple of reasons. First, I’m me. Second, did I mention she was stunningly beautiful? And third, her name was Carrie and I had recently dated another blonde girl named Kerri. I figured people would think I had a “thing” for yellow-haired girls with similar names.
Finally, I decided I’d just do it. I’d ask her to go grab a burger or accompany me to a ballgame or a movie. Anything. As fate would have it, she called me before I could call her and asked me to come over.
Absolutely!
Yes, she needed help moving out of her apartment, but who cared? I didn’t. It meant I’d get to be around her for hours, and I’d have plenty of opportunities to ask her to go somewhere with me afterward.
My chance came in the elevator of her apartment complex, making the trip back up for more stuff as two more helpers were loading a rental truck and more were cleaning the apartment. I asked her very politely to go to dinner with me, I think.
She smiled and said, “Oh, Brett. I think you are so sweet and handsome, and if you had asked me a year ago I would have loved to.”
My gears were turning, my mind trying to play catch up as I wondered what could possibly be wrong with the year we were in.
“But the other guy that’s loading the truck is my fiancé,” she said. “We’re actually getting married in a few weeks and I was going to ask you today to sing a couple of songs at my wedding.”
I recovered as quickly and as well as a guy can in a situation like that, I think, and said I’d be honored. She told me a song she liked and gave me a cassette soundtrack to sing with. She also asked me to write something and sing it a cappella for them.
I thought if she was trying to be overly polite about rejecting my advance, she was kind of going overboard. She introduced me to her Clark-Kent-lookalike betrothed that day and apparently confided to him what had occurred on board the elevator, because before I left he took me aside and apologized to me for not having properly introduced himself earlier and thereby saved me potential embarrassment.
Yep, the guy was so nice that HE apologized to ME.
Then I, of course, apologized for asking out his bride-to-be. He said not to worry about it. He was surprised more guys didn’t try to ask her out.
Anyway … fast-forward to the wedding. At rehearsal in their church in Natchez, I only sang the first verse of each song, for time’s sake. Then at the wedding, the first song was sung early in the wedding. The second song came during the candle-lighting ceremony and was the one I had written for them and was singing with no musical accompaniment.
Carrie had previously read the lyrics and heard me sing most of it. What neither of us realized was that the three-verse musical monolith was going to seem like it never ended.
Ever heard of the 18th-century epic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge? It takes approximately 25 minutes to read aloud. It’s also the poem that gives us the idea of tying a dead albatross around one’s neck to pull you down and kill you slowly.
This a cappella albatross I offered up was a ca-awfully long. I apologized so much after the ceremony, but what did they care? They were married now. Carrie asked if she could have my type-written lyric sheet for the song, which I of course gave to her.
I’m pretty sure they burned it that night for incense.
Timing. Mine was awful in asking and awful in singing. But it all worked out in the end.
I stayed the night between the rehearsal and wedding at the home of my ex-girlfriend Kerri’s new boyfriend … weird, I know, but it was offered … and spent some time with a former classmate from Southern.
She’s now my wife, wed to me five years ago and some 25 years after that December of bad timing.
I don’t know where I was going with all this, but here is where I have arrived — God’s timing is always great.
“When the fulness of time had come,” St. Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4-5).
So, as we celebrate Christmas this week, remember — Jesus came at the perfect time and he came for you and me.
Merry Christmas!
Brett Campbell can be reached at ChunkyBrett@mail.com or 601-934-0901.
