Photo Credits: Maria Wild

Just this week, I came across a little piece of paper with my vows handwritten on it. It was in a box of daily letters Nathan and I wrote to each other during the months of our engagement.

“I promise to love you, obey you, respect you, honor you, and help you in time of sickness or health, and forsaking all others, cling only to you. I will do you good and no evil all of the days of my life.”

The vows are serious. Staggeringly serious. But we did not take these vows trusting in our own strength to perform. The grace that enabled us to take these vows will be there to draw on when the performance of them seems hard.

Throughout the last sixteen years, we’ve sometimes seen God quietly in our mundane, and sometimes seen in Him break into our lives with bursts of His glory. Each week turned month turned year, we’ve tasted His mercy as we see that our lives aren’t a series of rewards for doing things right, but circumstances strung together that speak of who God is and who we aren’t.

There is nothing more satisfying, glorious, and grand than to seek together the kingdom of God. In this season of life, we primarily seek the kingdom of God by teaching the children who God is and what He requires of us.

Our children are our marriage’s most precious gifts, and we tell them how God protects our vows and what He has done in our life. This is our joy, that they may know God and never remember a day when they didn’t love Him.

So here’s to one more year in the fountains of His mercy – one more year of happiness keeping these vows!

Happy Anniversary, my Love!

with love. Damaris