My anniversary gift for Andrew came with much collaboration and devoted artistic talent from a beautiful Maryland Elf; Kirstie Delight. After an anniversary toast I presented Andrew with a smoked wood marble plague holding our wedding vows overlaying two wedding photos.
It's special to remember praying through, writing, then looking over our wedding vows together in the days preceding our wedding. I've thought about these vows so many times in the last year. The words I spoke in faith out on the dock the day of our wedding have taken on so much depth and new meaning in the last twelve months as my heart has become one with Andrew's. God's design is amazing. He's created us in his very image! The image of a relational triune God! What a mighty and faithful Lord we serve!
Andrew John Dickson, I am taking up a life beside you to be your wife and companion. To walk by faith in Christ as we seek to store up eternal treasure. Together creating a home with fertile ground for faith, hope and love to grow and nurture an environment of healing peace and true joy. I vow to work with you and pray with you, to comfort and care for you. God has entrusted me to you. I belong to you. I will never leave you but rather will learn to turn to you and be vulnerable before you. I will trust you with my whole heart and follow your leading. I will seek to encourage and support you as a helpmate and number one fan. I will battle on your behalf in prayer. I will respect and honor you with my words and with my actions, looking to your needs and desires as my own. I will trust you and rest in your love.
Eden Christine, today I take you to be my wife. As your head I vow from this moment forward that whatever I think, whatever emotions I feel, whatever spiritual, financial or physical situation we face, I will love, cherish, lead, provide for and protect you until our Lord returns or we are parted by death. Before Almighty God our Creator and Savior I declare myself responsible to lead you spiritually, always seeking to encourage and strengthen your faith hope and love in, and for, Jesus Christ our King. I will pursue your heart, treasure your friendship over any other, invite and give due consideration to your counsel, honour and esteem you above all people and watch over you in prayer. With God's help I will defend you against all odds and be emotionally and sexually faithful to you as I endeavour to love you beyond measure even as Christ loves us His church.
It may seem cliche that faith, hope and love appear in both our vows. I smile as I think of the thread (or three fold strand:) weaved through our relationship. During our five month communication fast Andrew wrote a poem about the showers of May watering seeds of hope that would one day flower. Around that same time I find an entry in my own journal mirroring that concept. In October, the morning Andrew left me in Ohio to return back to New Zealand he placed in my hand three acorns, symbolizing seeds of faith, hope and love. Those seeds began to grow and bud in our relationship as our dating began, with God's light shining on us and his living water flowing through us.
=)
ReplyDelete