Marriage Moats- Fingerprints- Part 3
Published: Sun, 06/03/12
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 Mona and Harvey settled on the brown couch, holding hands with the folder prominently on their joint lap.
"We composed a contract and we have eight signatures. My parents, Mona's parents, Uncle Frank and Aunt Laura, and both of us have each committed to building this marriage." Harvey had practiced how he would say this when they returned to the minister's office. "It includes the quote from Ezekiel that we will have in our wedding rings. Mine will be inscribed with 'I will give you a new heart '."
"Mine will say 'A new spirit will I put within you'," added Mona, looking at her finger where she could imagine it shining. "We feel like it describes the changes we will go through as we learn to be husband and wife."
"Now for the next three signature." Harvey handed the paper to Larry Soneson. He read it carefully, pausing to absorb each phrase. His wife Marjorie looked with him, smiling generously. Marjorie reached for a pen and with ceremony inscribed her name below the others. Her husband used the same pen. Then he wrote two more lines below theirs.
"How do we get a signature from God?" Harvey asked aloud. The minister took Harvey and Mona's clasped hands in his.
"In Isaiah is a passage that my wife wrote a song about, Can a Woman Forget Her Nursing Child?. It talks about the Lord's continual love and how it is even more enduring than a mother's love for her baby. He promises that your name is inscribed on the palms of His hands." Marjorie took an ink pad and pressed Mona's finger into the blackness, and then pushed a print onto the document. Larry took Harvey's finger and made another on the same line. "Your names are written on God's hand, and this fingerprint is a way of remembering that."
Mona and Harvey stared at the growing list of people who had committed to protecting their marriage.
"But there is one more line. Whose name goes there?" Mona asked.
"That person has not yet been born."
to be continued Photo by Jenny Stein
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