The Wedding Dress

This story is incredible. Becca shared it on her private blog and has given me permission to post it here. You can comment below or email her directly to tell her what an amazing story this is. It needs to be submitted to a magazine! The stories of inspirational people are growing by the minute... with all the negativity going on around us, this is JUST what the world needs. Grab a box of Kleenex and enjoy..

(I stole a picture off Becca's blog-- just so you can get an idea of how cute she is! She was planning on posting a picture of her wedding dress, but she's busy with five kids. Here she is with her darling daughters..)


By: Rebecca McFadden
beccamcfadden@comcast.net

The coolest experience I have ever had was the experience of my wedding dress. If you have a minute, I will share it. It is a most special description of the hand of the Lord in our lives!

My husband of three years had sold pest control and managed a team in the summer of 1998. The company he had worked for had gone into bankruptcy so they couldn’t pay us 2/3 of our wages that next fall. With an 18 month old daughter (Emilee), college tuition and costs on our meager plates, and nothing to spare, we felt the crunch! We were trying to figure out how to come up with the $385.00 needed for our rent that month! I was praying fervently for help and guidance.

As I walked into our baby’s Wymount room (BYU married student housing - the cinder block walls, ahhh how I miss them! :))), my eye caught on a white plastic bag in the closet. My wedding dress! I would sell my wedding dress! Although I didn’t want to part with this special reminder of our sacred wedding day, I felt the peaceful prompting from the Spirit that it was a good idea and that all would be alright.

So I put ads up at BYU that very day (since rent was due in two weeks exactly!) I told my best friend, Natalie Affleck that I was doing it. She and her husband Mike had also sold pest control for the same company that summer before and were hurting financially too (with a baby boy the same age as Emilee.) She comforted me as I spoke of how I had always envisioned wearing my wedding dress again some day for a Young Women’s New Beginnings or with my daughters. She said she knew it would be okay too!

I begged the Lord for help since we had two weeks. I told him I was willing to sell this precious possession if he would help me to get the rent money in time!

No calls for almost two whole weeks and then the day before rent was due, I got a phone call from a young lady named Laura Green. She asked if she could come by and look at my dress! I was so grateful but a little sorrowful too! She came over quickly and the minute I looked at her, I could see that the dress would fit her perfectly. And it did… even the sleeves which had been a tiny bit too long on me were exactly right on her! I felt the Spirit very strongly again and she handed me a check for a full $400.00 - $15.00 more than we had asked for the dress. Then she left with it in hand and I never saw her again.

Two years later, our good friends, the Afflecks, were in a time of suffering. Three months prior to college graduation, they had gotten in a most serious car accident…. the drunk driver who never even slowed down for them on the freeway while they were in standstill traffic took the life of their new 3 month old, Matthew. Their now 2 year old, MJ (Emilee’s little buddy) was in a full body cast and suffering deeply. Both parents had quite suddenly found themselves in their greatest time of loss and sorrow. I can honestly say that this was a time of deep reflection, grief, loss, pain and sorrow for Jeremy and I as well. Oh how we grieved for these dear friends of ours and the senseless loss of their perfect baby boy, Matthew.

Both Jeremy and I (Mike was Jer’s best friend) couldn’t fathom the pain they felt since our own was so vivid and painful. We would cry and pray and sing to comfort ourselves. It was a Gethsemane experience for all. We didn’t have much contact with them for two months or so after seeing them that day after the accident in the hospital in Salt Lake City.

I was expecting our second baby within the week and wasn’t to travel back and forth even from Provo to SLC. So I missed the funeral and thought constantly of our dear friends and how this could happen to them! I had our baby, a boy… McKay, and this only intensified the feelings of loss for them! These two would have been such great friends! My heart was squeezed constantly. But I knew the Lord was blessing them with comfort and help. Surrounded by family and love, the process for healing had to begin! We missed seeing them much those last three months of school before graduation. We were very close to them and never had known more giving and Christlike people. Natalie had even helped me sew a baby jacket for Emilee the fall previous since we both hadn’t been paid for our summer job completely and were so hurting for money. I was worried how to keep Emilee warm for winter and she helped me make a coat out of her old baby blanket she had! She and Mike would have given us their shirts off their backs if possible! They are very good people.

In April, the time had come for graduation. Both the Afflecks and the McFaddens were heading out into the world with full time employment (he was going to work for Ford and Jeremy for Deloitte and Touche accounting.) One day in April, Natalie called us and asked if they could visit and bring Jer’s graduation present over. I was thrilled since I wanted to see them after not being able to for awhile. The door knocked and it opened.

I saw the white bag first before I even saw Natalie behind it! I couldn’t register in my mind what was happening. I knew the white plastic bag like I knew my own face. But how did she have it in her hand now? What was happening here? She held my wedding dress and then handed it to me with tears in her eyes. She kept repeating that she knew my mom would have wanted me to have it! (My own mother had passed away from breast cancer when I was 17!) Natalie told me that there was no way I shouldn’t have it… that my mother wanted it this way! I thought maybe she had found it at a thrift store or a second hand store. But instead, I found out the very most beautiful sacrifice ever at these kind friends’ hands!

Back when we were all suffering so much financially that year, a good friend got a call from her good friend that she was selling her wedding dress for rent money! There was a two week time frame and hopes were high. Nearing the two week mark, with no sell in sight, this good friend called an old high school friend (Laura Green) who was of a smaller physical frame and asked her to do a favor. She was to play the part of a bride-to-be and come retrieve the wedding dress and leave a check for the full amount. The deed was done… I never knew any different until two full years later when we were both ready to leave school with full time jobs… so that we wouldn’t feel like there was a need for repayment.

Natalie and Mike had sacrificed precious money that they didn’t really have to allow me to have my wedding dress now! And for always! Even Laura Green was so touched that she contributed $100.00 of her own money! The Afflecks didn’t have the means to do this at all… they just acted on an opportunity to trust the Lord and be part of a little miracle! The best part was when Natalie told me that I had called her the same day I had sold my dress and as we talked and I tearfully mentioned that I knew it was right even though it was really hard and I would miss the dress, she looked on her very couch and saw the white dress laying there in her home. She knew she would wait to give it back.

The beautiful part of this story is yet to be told. It isn’t that I actually did get to wear it for a Young Womens’ New Beginnings a year and a half later. It isn’t that the rent got paid or that I even was so surprised and amazed at the generosity. It is that the Lord required the ultimate sacrifice of these friends that year. They gave up their child and this is because they trusted the Lord’s promises when they came to this earth. They know they will be with him again in the Lord’s presence someday. I know this is true. They will be so blessed for the way they have lived on this earth and the way they act upon the promptings they receive in the moments! I will always honor them for acting upon a simple moment of love to help me pay my rent and have my wedding dress.

This story was originally posted on The Family Soup, an inspirational blog started by my cousin Bethany. She just had baby boy #4 (yeah, boys!) so it hasn't been updated in a while... The Family Soup is a compilation of uplifting stories about marriage, friendship, parenthood, etc. It's a "place to explore the ingredients of a healthy family life." Check it out sometime!