A long, wonderful day at PCA General Assembly, lots of good conversation with women hungry for the good news of God’s story of grace really is written in individuals, community, and cosmos. As I mentioned yesterday, little time to post this week, so we are in a series of re-runs. Today and tomorrow, my Valentine’s post from this year. A repeat we all need to hear again I think.
God melts the iciest heart, even mine
Today, a Valentine about the best love we’ll ever know, the only one that won’t disappoint. I wrote this two years ago, and though some of the circumstances have changed, the only steadfast assurance is that while I continue to fail in my vows, our God never wavers.
I’ve done it again. I’ve broken my vows. I just turned my husband down for a date because it was easier to say ‘no’ to him than figure out how to get my daughter to volleyball and my son to piano. Having recently led a marriage conference, my vow to ‘forsake all others’ is fresh on my mind. In preparation for the conference, I reviewed the vows I purportedly recited on my wedding day. I confess that in the fog of lace and love, I don’t actually recall saying these, but witnesses tell me I did. I promised to love and comfort, honor and protect my husband, forsaking all others and being faithful to him as long as we both should live.
I didn’t remember the words – I had to google them; that fact in itself reveals a certain lack of attentiveness. And I have to be honest, as I read them, I shook my head in disbelief that I would ever utter them aloud. Not because they’re not lofty goals that seem in line with the Biblical understanding of what living out love in marriage should look like, but because I should have known I could never keep them.
The fact is, I’m a vow breaker. More honest vows for me would have run like this: Kip, I promise that every day of our married life I will fail you. I will put my needs before yours because I want to feel good about myself. I will fear disappointing my parents more than I fear disappointing you, so I will arrange our family’s schedule around their wishes at Christmastime. I will be too busy or too tired for sex on a regular basis, and whatever I do, I will NEVER EVER wear that lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. Now these are some vows I could keep (sigh,have kept).
This probably would have made for a most UN-romantic wedding, but it would have reminded us of the TRUE story of marriage which the Bible tells.
In Scripture, the story of marriage goes like this –
