(My commencement message to the 2016 graduating class of William Carey University. Delivered Saturday afternoon, August 6, 2016.)
Dr. Larry Kennedy was President of this institution for the last decade of his life. In the 1960s, Larry and I were seminary classmates, and then we pastored several churches in Mississippi near one another. He told me this story.
“My son Steve was 7 years old when he went to his first big-church wedding. He sat in the sanctuary beside his mother and watched as the door in front opened and his dad walked out and took his place. Behind him came six or seven good-looking young men dressed in tuxedos. Spread across the front of the church, they were a handsome lot. The bridesmaids entered and took their places. Finally, everyone stood as the bride entered on the arm of her father and moved slowly down the aisle. At this point, Steve tugged on his mother’s arm.
“Mother, does she already know which one of those men she’s going to marry? Or is she going to decide when she gets down there?”