Wedding Vows

"Do you, Bro. Matt, take Sis. Tisha, To be thy wedded wife?

To Love and to cherish,

For better or for worse,

For richer or for poorer,

In Sickness and in health;

To comfort and honor,

Provide for her and keep her;

Cleaving only unto her,

As long as you both shall live?"

"I Do."

"Do you, Sis. Tisha, Take Bro. Matt, to be thy wedded husband?

to love and to cherish,

For better or for worse,

For richer or for poorer,

In sickness and in health;

To comfort and honor,

Obey and keep him;

Forsaking all others,

And from this day forward,

Keeping thyself only unto him,

As long as you both shall live?"

"I Do."

When we were engaged to be married we asked Bro. Dean Higgins to be our minister. He had never done a wedding before; so in some ways he was a new as us to it all. I couldn't find anybody who had a copy of wedding vows for the ceremony. I went online and searched it, but the only ones I found didn't seem to have everything that I thought needed to be there. So I decided to get my Bible out and research what the Bible said a husband and wife ought to do. That along with the basic vows I found online helped me to come up with the vows we made on our wedding day.

The reason I have been thinking about wedding vows is because yesterday Christian asked me how people got married. I explained to him that we had a piece of paper that we had to sign so that people could tell we were married; but I told him that most importantly we made vows (which I explained to him were like promises) before God and to each other that said we would treat each other good and stay married.

Our children have a way of keeping us on our toes and keeping us humble.

Soon after we were married I typed up our wedding vows and framed them. After speaking to Christian I got to thinking about what those wedding vows said. Now I've always been faithful to Matt, and I've always loved him, but if I'm completely honest I don't always cherish him like I should, or honor him like I should. How many times do I comfort him when he really needs it. Sometimes I might even be so caught up in myself that I don't see the times that he needs comfort from me. I've stuck with him through the hard times (and we haven't really had REAL bad times); but have I actually been a help to him during those hard times?

Now I know Matt pretty well, I could really pick him apart if I wanted to. He's human just like me. Most of the time I think I'm more faulty than him though. Sometimes I don't like the way he does things, or I just take for granted the many good things that he does for me and our family. Where is the cherishing and honoring in that? Fulfilling my wedding vows is a lot more than just continuing to live together as husband and wife. I'm glad for the little reminder from my 5 year old that I need to try harder to follow my wedding vows. A vow before God is a very serious thing after all.