Marriage Vows: A Lifetime of Knowing You
Growing up, I learned about God through the stories I was taught. Daniel and the lions’ den, Hannah praying for Samuel, David and Goliath, and enough Bible stories to answer questions and feel rather pleased with myself whenever I got them right. I had a beautiful Bible that made me want to open it beyond Sundays, and slowly, all of those stories became part of how I understood who God was.
It would take time before I realized that knowing His stories, knowing what had been taught about Him, and even being able to speak about Him were only the beginning of actually knowing Him.
Somewhere along the way, the topic of hell came up, and fear drove my actions. Funny enough, God still used it. He used all of it. The stories, the pretty Bible, my love of knowing things, and the fear. Over time, the fear began to dissipate, and the God I first encountered through stories became the God I began to encounter in my own life. When I walked through valleys of the shadow of death, afraid and unsure of what came next, I began to understand what David meant when he wrote:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4, KJV
I began to feel loved and came to know a God who seemed to say, Come here. Come here with your tear-stained face. Come here with your crazy imagination. Come here with the thing that has somehow become the biggest problem in your world today. Come here when you are afraid. Come here when you are confused. Come here when you do not understand Me. Come here when you are happy and bubbly, when you’ve eaten every sweet treat that makes you giddy. Come here when you feel on top of the world, and on the days when you do not.
There have been days in my relationship with God when I have been truly hurt, days when I have looked at what He allowed and struggled with what to do with the feelings that followed. Sometimes the question seems to rise in my spirit: Are you disappointed with Me?
When I finally unravel those feelings before Him, I am reminded that He is Father, while still being King and Lord. Somehow, in the fullness of who He is, I feel wrapped in love.
Perhaps that is part of what made the picture of covenant begin to feel so personal to me. Scripture describes the Church as the bride of Christ, and the more I sat with that picture, the more I began thinking about actual marriage vows.
Marriage vows are spoken with awareness. In sickness and in health. For better or for worse. They are words spoken knowing that a lifetime may contain things nobody standing at the altar or looking towards can fully predict.
I began to think about my own yes to Christ, which birthed the expression below.
A reminder to myself of the commitment that continues beyond feeling, fear, or circumstance. A reminder I suspect I will have to return to again and again.
Marriage Vows
I knew I liked you in the beginning
because of how you showed up.
You found me my shoes when I needed them.
You made me shine when I was scared.
You met me in small moments that felt like care.
It felt like dates scattered through ordinary days.
I loved you for what you did for me.
I loved you for how you provided.
Then someone preached hell,
and fear entered the room.
I chose you then because the fear of hell
outweighed the cost of choosing you.
I stayed not because I knew you,
but because the alternative felt heavier.
Then slowly I got to know you.
You were not the person I imagined you to be.
You were better than the version I painted.
There truly is no one better than you.
I have lived long.
To the fifty-year-old, I am still young.
So I say this humbly.
There is a fear that still exists in me.
It is stifled, but it is present.
It shows up when the imagined becomes real.
It shows up when Job’s hardship
is no longer a passage I read.
It shows up when obedience
stops sounding poetic.
My heart tells me the issue
is that I prepare for the worst.
I close the thoughts
and call it faith.
Vain righteousness is what it is.
Later, I realize
what you actually declared.
You declared yourself a suffering servant.
You invited me to carry my cross.
See, I have cried over many things in my life.
I have cried over cake without shame.
I have had full meltdowns over hair.
And in those unswervingly unimportant moments,
you cared.
So when you speak of a cross,
I pause.
And that’s the fear.
The fear of what my response will be.
Who I will be when asked to carry it.
You then walk me through our vows.
In sickness and in health.
It is vowed not because we pretend
it will never be a bother.
Rather, we speak it knowing
the weight of what is being said.
A reminder that it’s been nailed to the cross.
You still allowed me to vow.
You let me choose you consciously.
I declared you Lord and Savior.
Chose to decorate my life with you.
I spoke the words
knowing they carried weight.
Whether before people
or before heaven alone,
I remember what I said.
These vows consciously declared.
So when the road breaks open with potholes,
help me to remember these vows.
If I cry through it,
that is all good.
As long as my eyes remain fixed on you,
it’ll be all good.
I will not run,
because I made a vow.
Till death do us part in flesh,
then forever intertwined
for all of eternity.
So here is all of me.
Here is my human self without pretence.
Here is my fear released and brought to you.
Take over with your power.
Wrap me in your love.
Let my clouded mind become sound.
And with clarity and consent,
I say this.
Let heaven be my witness.
I do.
I really do.
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