Wedding vows

Char's wedding ring flew off his finger somewhere in Big Bend National Park, and I'm really happy about it.  Tomorrow is our 13th wedding anniversary, and we're going to the Grand Canyon, just like we did on our honeymoon, and I'm so excited to exchange rings again.

Wedding vows.  If you're married, did your wedding vows make much of an impression on you when you got married?    To me, they seemed somewhat like a lot of traditional words in the blur of a busy day.  Sometimes, it seems overfamiliarity with certain words makes them lose impact.  I'd heard those wedding vow words so many times since childhood - in books and movies.  Then, beginning in high school, I began playing the cello at weddings, and I half-heard those vows so many times in between playing wedding music and stressing that I'd screw something up and ruin someone's wedding.  The wedding vows didn't mean a lot to me.  I heard them over and over again.

On the other hand, Char and I were getting married, and I knew I needed to take the words seriously, but how could I understand our wedding vows when we made them?  I realize now how much I didn't know back when I was 25.  Marriage would be so much deeper, more complicated, and more intricate than we could ever know when we made those wedding vows.

Even if I had thought a lot about our wedding vows 13 years ago, I would have had no idea what they really meant.  How does marriage really work?  Does anyone really know that on their wedding day?  I watched my parents' marriage, and it was a strong marriage, and I figured our marriage would be something like that.  However, Char and I came from two totally different backgrounds, and we needed to figure out our own ways of doing things.  I remember a few years ago when we were on vacation, and we realized we'd actually figured out the way we, as a couple and as a family, like to vacation.  The same thing happened with holidays, and with life in general.  It didn't go the way I'd always seen, but instead we needed to figure out how everything would work for us.  We had no idea when we said our wedding vows that we'd have so much "figuring out" to do of how life was going to work for us as a couple.  I know that now.

More important than that, though, are the words we said.  The words that I'd said - I took them seriously, but I didn't really understand them at all.  They were promises to my Charlie and to God, with a whole bunch of people watching as witnesses.  We promised to

love, 

honor, 

cherish, 

protect, 

and to forsake all others, 

and we promised to do that in sickness and health,

 richer or poorer, 

until death do us part.  

We've never experienced much at all with sickness or health, or richer or poorer.  Maybe God will bring that in the future.  But now I know what it means, and how much work it is

to show love even when we don't feel like it, 

to honor even when one of us offends the other,

to cherish even when we're exhausted by the kids...

And I'm excited to promise it over again.  Now I know what it means, and now I understand what marriage requires, and I still say, "I do."  And I'm so excited to say it again, now that I know.  :)  :)  :)

(edited from yesterday to add pictures)

It was awesome.