Let's Get Married... (sing it like Jagged Edge)

So.... I got married!  Wahoo!  There is so much I want to write about.  So much I want to say about our big day and all the leading up to it.  I want write about our sweet family and all they sacrificed to make our day possible, and I want to write about our wedding party and their selfless love they poured out to us.  I want to write about or friends and family who came to support us... friends from high school, from our childhood, from Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maryland.... all over the US and even some friends from Japan.  I want to write about our loved ones who couldn't be there, but supported us with e-mails and letters and prayers.  We are so blessed.

There is just so much that I want to write about.  Today, though, I'm going to write about our vows.

Kevin and I spent a long time thinking about what we wanted to promise each other.  We chose to go through 7 months of premarital counseling.  When I say that some people think, "Whoa... was your relationship that bad?"  Ha!  Our relationship has always been for me quite the opposite.  We have had rough patches, but I have never seen Jesus more than I have when I am with Kevin.  And that is comforting and exciting and joyous!

So... During the 7 months of counseling (which, just a small selling point, was the BEST decision I think we ever made for our marriage), the magnitude of this commitment finally hit me.  How silly was I to think I was making a promise just to Kevin.  It's so much more than that.  This was my promise to my Creator.  To the One who calls me His Beloved.  This was my promise, my covenant, to my God and my husband.

So here are our vows.  I post them, not to be showy or even for a good read.  I post them because most of the people who read this are the people I mentioned in my first paragraph.  I do want the world to know what commitment I made on that day.  I want them, you, to know because I kindly request that you hold Kevin and I accountable to them.  Even if you don't believe what we do about marriage, or God, or anything else mentioned in our vows, we still hope you love and respect us enough to hold us to them.  You don't have to believe what we do to remind us of the promises we made to God and each other on August 5, 2012.

As I marry you today, I am making a lifelong and irrevocable commitment to know and love God and to know and love you.

I promise never to stop seeking to learn how to love you better.  As in 1 Corinthians 13, I want my love for you to be patient, kind and enduring, not jealous or envious; a love that is content with what God is pleased to give us; a love which is not proud or selfish, not rude or inconsiderate; a love that is gentle with your weaknesses and seeks to point you to Christ, not me; a love that responds graciously when we have a disagreement.  Most of all, I want my love to be a love that points you to the source of all real love, our Savior Jesus Christ.

I commit myself to seek God’s help to love you with a love that absolves annoying wrongs, failures, sins or inconsistencies; a love that is glad to forgive and grieves when you are hurt or troubled or sinful; a love that reaches out to give help; to restore and uplift rather than demean, despise, expose, or condemn.

By God’s grace, I resolve to love you with a love that does not demand its own way; a love that is creatively thoughtful and looks for ways to encourage; a love that is not self-seeking, putting your needs before my own.  I promise to protect you and stay with you.  I pledge myself to a love that will know no limit to its trust, no fading of its hope; a love that will stand when all else around us has fallen.  I promise to give myself wholly to you.  I dedicate myself to finding my ultimate contentment and satisfaction in Jesus Christ and not to seek it from you or anything else.

I promise to share with you my thoughts, my dreams, my hopes, my joys, my successes, my troubles, my fears, my failures, all of my life.  More than that, I will encourage you to share yourself with me too.

I promise to keep God at the center of our marriage and give Him the glory for anything good that He does through us.  I marry you with the conviction that for me to be a good husband and for me to be a good wife, I must know, worship, and serve God.  I make these promises with the understanding that I am first committed wholeheartedly to God.  This is my commitment to God and to you as your husband and as your wife.