A Cord of Three Strands

On a mountain top, with a painted sky and an exquisite sunset as our backdrop, we stood before God and our closest family, at the foot of a Cross as our altar, built especially for me by the love of my life, my best friend, my lover, my provider, my protector, my husband of TWENTY years, and recommitted ourselves to one another and to God.

So many years have passed since I met and married my love and I can hardly believe it! As the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun…….and even those times you aren’t! Ha! Ha! In all seriouness, anyone who is married knows it’s not always sunshine and roses. It is work, sacrifice, determination, a whole lot of love, forgiveness, good times and bad, and definitely worth it! Marriage is a blessing and a gift if you treat it as such but marriage is a union of two imperfect, sinful people in need of God’s, and each other’s grace.

We have made more than our fair share of mistakes through the years. We’ve hurt each other and let each other down many times, in many ways, but through the grace and glory of God, we clung to each other, eventually turning where we should’ve turned from the beginning, living the way we should have lived from the beginning, trusting in His faithfulness and His promises. Instead of trying to change ourselves, change each other, or taking the easy way out, we let Him change us and we are so grateful that He did and He didn’t let us give up!

When we both committed to living the way that God wanted us to and immersing ourselves in His word and in prayer together, as well as, and not just, individually, we both began to change because He changed us. Our story isn’t unique from many others I’ve read about and listened to. We both believed the gospel and considered ourselves Christians. We were married in a church. We both went to church as children and some as teenagers, though not weekly. We were both saved as children but neither of us ever really took the time to sit with and stew in the word of God on a daily basis. As a child, though my heart was convicted, I think its impossible to understand what it means to live for Christ at that age, as an adult. Im not dismissing my, or anyone else’s experience or salvation.

It was most definitely the real thing for me and I honestly can’t remember a time that I haven’t had a daily prayer life or a relationship with the Lord. I believed without a doubt, though I do think believing and truly being changed by your salvation are two different things and for most it is a process, but one that will take place if you have accepted the Lord into your heart. It took an experience of God making His presence undeniably known to me to wake me up and basically remind me that I am His and He will not stop until I live according to His will. He had been trying for a long time to get me where I needed to be and I knew it, but I ignored Him for many reasons. Pain, selfishness, fear of missing out or being different, which were all ridiculous reasons because the only salvation for all of those things is Him. We were normal people living how most everyone lives today.

Watching and listening to whatever we wanted to without a second thought. Going out with friends anywhere we wanted without a second thought. Doing whatever we wanted to do without a second thought. Nothing particularly horrible, according to society’s standards, but society’s standards pale in comparison to His standards, and we were not living according to the standards of God. If we had been, we could’ve saved ourselves a whole lot of grief in so many ways. Now, we’re far more aware and far more guarded about what we surround ourselves with and what environments we place ourselves in. We learned that what and who you place yourself in and around will influence what is normal or okay to you eventually, without you even realizing it.

Right down to what you listen to on the radio and what you watch on television, which is why it is so important to study God’s word every day. I want to be clear that we are both well aware that we are sinners. We will always fall short of God’s standards in every way, and do every day, because we are sinners, but through His conviction and change of us, we desire and try our best to please Him and we try to be a positive influence on others rather than allowing anyone to be a negative influence on us and no, this isn’t always easy but we try to remain aware.

That really is it, if we are as close to the Father as we should be, we will always desire to be closer. Our wants and desires become more in line with His wants and desires for us. If you stop caring, or thinking everything is no big deal, thats probably a good indication that you’re drifting away from God. Our marriage isn’t perfect, nor will it ever be, but it is perfect for us and we have learned that to have a good marriage is to have God at the center of our marriage without compromise, to be a united front, always on each other’s side. We decided that we would renew our vows on our 20th Anniversary because we wanted to recommit to each other, but also recommit our marriage to God with a much more in depth understanding of what those vows really mean.

So, lets get on with it! If you’ve read my “about me” write up, you already know I can be a little bit of a split personality. This is one of those times where the defiant me came out to play. I’ll start by saying when it comes to certain things, a lot of things, I like rules. I love rules! I need rules. Everyone needs rules! In society in general, in relationships of every kind, in whats appropriate for where (and if ever), for driving, even for general attitude towards others (I can’t handle rudeness). I could go on but you get my point…..

Then, there is this other half of me. The half that reads things like ‘vow renewal etiquette’, or ‘do’s and don’ts of vow renewal’, …and that half rolls her eyes and throws those books, articles and suggestions in the trash can and says, ‘this is our accomplishment, celebration, milestone in life, goal reached, worked for, fought for destination, admittedly not final, but still….. our time, our decision’. Why should anyone else on the planet get to tell us what is appropriate or inappropriate for our vow renewal?? WE should get to make the rules!! So, that is exactly what we did. I’ll make the rest as short and sweet as possible.

The first thing we did was pick our location, which happens to be a favorite spot of my Dad’s who passed eight months ago, as a way of honoring him. The second thing was I bought a dress! Not just A dress. The most beautiful wedding dress I’ve ever seen which was a “vow renewal don’t”. (Insert eye roll here)…I did, and I did it with one of the most beautiful head pieces I’ve ever seen just to spite the “vow renewal don’ts” a little more. The entire ensemble looked like the 20’s and I loved every inch of it! Then, we booked the photographer, who did an amazing job, ordered a cake and a bouquet, with which, the florist also did amazing!

We got the other half dressed and tied, and last, but most definitely not least, my other half built the amazing altar in the shape of a cross for our ceremony, which was the only decoration we wanted, other than the beautiful backdrop God created. We really wanted this ceremony to be about God, him and me, and nothing else, which is why we decided to keep it really small. We invited our parents and siblings and wrote our own vows to each other, also including the traditional vows.

Everything turned out to be exactly as we pictured with the exception of my Dad not being physically with us. I decided not to do the traditional walk down the aisle because that was his place, so instead we just sort of wandered to the foot of the cross and called everyone near. We ended the celebration with pizza, cake, conversation, memories, and a few tears back at our house wrapped in a bitter sweet feeling of hope, faith and love. ❤️