Vows

Our church, Chase Oaks, has been in a four-week series about marriage called "Forever. For real?" in which we've covered topics ranging from conflict management to the lure of adultery. On Sunday, at the end of the service, which was the last Sunday in the series, the pastor called all the married couples up to the front to renew their vows.

Josh typically eschews anything that takes him in front of a crowd (even when he's amidst a crowd when going forward) and resisted when I asked him to participate. After some prodding, both from me and from our exchange student, Julia, Josh and I stood up at the front with many other couples, were told to face each other and hold hands. We've never placed much importance on vow renewal and Josh has said, "I meant what I said on our wedding day. I don't need to repeat it."

Then, husbands first, then wives, we said to each other a form of the traditional wedding vows (with a line added in about remaining faithful to each other to emphasize the point of the sermon that morning):

I, Anna, take you Josh, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

Both Josh and I had tears running down our cheeks throughout the vow sharing, made sure we had a longer kiss than our small peck that we managed at our wedding nearly 16 1/2 years ago, and then walked back to our family as they clapped.

Josh and I talked afterward that the experience we shared at the front of the church just then, even though it lasted less than 2 minutes, was one of the most profound and moving moments in our shared lives. We know what those vows mean now...so much more than when we were 21 and 22 years old, one of us freshly out of college and the other with one semester left. We barely knew ourselves, much less each other.

I am with Josh through the worst (diagnosis with a supposedly terminal disease doesn't get much worse) and in sickness, just as I'm there when things are going very well for both of us.

My advice to you: Don't hesitate to step forward and participate in an opportunity in which your first reaction is to run the other way. You never know what impact the experience may have on you.