I'm home after a privileged and pleasurable weekend sharing with a young couple as they entered the covenant of marriage.  It has been a weekend of 'hmm' and 'wow' moments to be sure...

I always like to buy a "silly gift" for couples I marry, something of little monetary worth but that somehow symbolises something about their marriage.  This time, I'd failed misterably - or so I thought. 

On Friday morning I'd nipped out to do some last minute shopping, and had been given a £2 coin in my change.  I thought nothing of this, and set off to catch my train.  At the railway station, I bought a cup of tea and handed over the coin in payment, spotting too late, so I thought, that it was really shiny and new.  The young man took a close look at it, handed it back and said, "you should keep that, it's valuable - worth around £50."  Somewhat nonplussed, I took back the coin and sifted through my change for alternative means of payment!  What an honest and generous young man, who could simply have swapped the coin for his own change after I'd left...

Curious, I tapped in to my phone the details of the coin, and, sure enough, it is relatively rare, a special edition coin, minted for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and currently selling for £10-£15 on well-known websites.  A bit more searching revealed that an historian had been furious at the design, King John is holding a quill pen to sign the document when , actually, he would simply have used a royal seal.

Suddenly, I had my daft gift... the Bible reading chosen by the couple was from Song of Songs 8:6-7 and begins "set me as a seal upon your heart..."

So, I told the story as part of my address and gave them the coin, telling them not to spend it, but to put it in a drawer and, every now and then, when they came across it, to remember the promises they made this day.

Hmmm....

This morning the new Mrs C handed me a small packet saying, that this was a thank you gift for me... as I opened it, I discovered this wonderful, carefully designed piece which was inspired by my New Zealand koru (unfurling fern) brooch - which I had worn yesterday for the wedding ceremony.  It is stunning beautiful, a real 'wow' moment and also a kind of a 'hmm' moment too.  My unfurling fern, a Maori symbol of new life and/or resurrection is a precious possession way beyond its monetary value.  This beautiful necklet expresses the same symbolism, consciously or unconsciously, and I will treasure it always.

In the silly and in the sacred; in symbols great and small; in moments that make you laugh and in moments that take away your breath, God speaks, and I am so glad that, in these few days, I heard.