Sermon Illustrations
Newlywed Couple Has First Dance in the Midst of a Traffic Jam
It's a common wedding scenario: ceremony takes place in one location, guests and wedding party hop in their cars and take a quick trip to the reception venue. Simple, right?
For one Ohio couple, things got a little more complicated. After their ceremony, Jeff and Rebecca Payne left for the reception, along with the rest of their guests. They were met with an unexpected (and unwelcome) surprise: a traffic jam that left them sitting on U.S. Route 35.
After being parked there for an hour, another surprise development unfolded. A couple of fellow drivers, who had "noticed the wedding dress and asked what [the couple] would be doing if they weren't stuck in traffic," had a creative idea: how about have the first dance right there on the highway?
Jeff and Rebecca decided to do it, getting out of the car and dancing to an Alison Krauss song (a bystander played it from their Spotify).
Another bystander, who filmed the dance, said that the newlyweds "were two sports. They handled the whole thing so well. They did great. The dance turned it into a party."
Thankfully, the unconventional first dance turned into a happily-ever-after: "[A] friend of the groom's father pulled up in the opposite lane, so the Paynes could hop over a guardrail, get into the car and start the rest of their life."
Potential Preaching Angles: "Stuck," "waiting"—they're not fun words, and they're not fun feelings, yet we so often find ourselves describing our situations with them. How are we hoping and keeping faith until we're able to hop over our own guardrails and "escape"? How do we live in the midst of our own traffic jams?