My only tip for remembering your wedding day promises

I thought writing wedding vows would be easy.

That makes sense, right? I am a writer by trade. I have spent thousands of hours putting pen to paper, writing everything from research papers and essays, to news articles, to fiction. Outside occasional writers block, I don't find writing to be a struggle. Yes, the process can be ugly sometimes, and yes, sometimes I get frustrated trying to find the right words, but it's always been the thing I come back to over and over again and there are few things I find more satisfying than telling a great story.

But sitting in the living room with a blank Google Doc staring back at me, I didn't know where to begin.

It wasn't so much not knowing what to say, though.

I look relaxed. Trust me, I was not. 

Photo: James West Photography

I had mixed feelings about writing personal vows at first. Contrary to popular belief, I am not an extrovert. I would not say I am shy but I don't enjoy being the centre of attention - which is an inevitable thing on your wedding day, it turns out.

Don't get me wrong - I was excited to marry Jeff and I was excited to celebrate with our friends and family. We had a beautiful day and I could not be happier with how everything went. But those who know me well know it was never about the wedding for me. It was - and remains - always about the marriage.

The combination of those two things made the prospect of penning vows overwhelming to me at first. I wasn't sure which part made me feel more anxious: the idea of standing in front of a big group of people and sharing aloud some very personal thoughts, or coming up with something to say that accurately reflected my thoughts on marriage.

So I did what I always do when tackling a difficult writing project. I wrote two sentences, paused to re-read them, then deleted them and started again.

And again. And again.

I was probably making a stupid face at him at this point.

Photo: James West Photography

Clearly, it was a super productive and not-at-all frustrating time.

Truth be told, I would probably still be writing my vows eight months later had it not been for our pre-marital counselling sessions. Along with our sit-down sessions with the pastor, Jeff and I read Timothy Keller's The Meaning of Marriage in the lead up to our wedding. Keller's passage on vows was so significant both Jeff and I incorporated it into our vows.

Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love, but a mutually binding promise of future love. A wedding should not be primarily a celebration of how loving you feel now - that can be safely assumed. Rather, in a wedding you stand up before God, your family, and all the main institutions of society, and you promise to be loving, faithful, and true to the other person in the future, regardless of undulating internal feelings or external circumstances.

Thinking about vows from that perspective changed my entire approach to writing. It helped me think beyond the day and, as a result, draw my focus back to determining what realistic promises I could make that day.

In the end, I came up with this: to keep choosing to love Jeff - when I want to, when it's hard and especially when I don't want to and to always commit to our marriage in a deliberate and intentional way.

I'm not naive enough to think either of those promises will always be easy to keep - and that's why it was important to me to find a way to keep those promises in fresh in my mind.

That brings me to my only tip for remembering your wedding day promises:

Keep them in a place where you can review them regularly. 

It's not an entirely original tip. The summer before we got married, I went to a LOT of weddings. At one of these weddings, the pastor suggested doing this for when you need a reminder of why you're doing the marriage thing to begin with.

Not if you need a reminder. When. Love might not be inevitable, but times of conflict in marriage? You can count on that.

The means of display will look different for everyone. In our case, after returning from our honeymoon, we purchased two plain black photo frames, stuck those two folded sheets of paper inside and nailed them to the wall above our bedside tables. Much like my wedding band, it is a reminder of the promises we made to one another at the front of that little wooden chapel in Upper Gagetown that October afternoon.

I am not a perfect wife and Jeff is not a perfect husband. What we are is committed to our marriage - to being loving, being faithful and being true to one another, for better or for worse.

Photo: James West Photography 

2016

A graduation. 

An incredible trip.

A new job.

A wedding. 

A honeymoon

A lot of time and energy devoted to a great ministry.

& a lot of time spent with good friends.

2016. What can I say? A lot of people have been hard on you, but I can't really complain.

That's not to say everything was sunshine and roses.  But for every hard moment, for every hopeless situation, 2016 was the year where I truly started to understand how you find freedom when you learn to let go. 

In my case, that meant facing, coming to terms with, and releasing a lot of anxiety related to my career. Because somewhere along the line, without meaning to or even noticing, my career became a big part of my identity. It wasn't so much the specific job so much as it was what that meant. As unhappy as I was at my previous job, it was secure. It was full-time, I had benefits and vacation and it paid well - especially compared to what was out there when I started looking. 

But, happy or not, the bills needed to be paid. So I stayed. And I started looking.

I polished up my resume and wrote cover letters. I applied to other places and did about half a dozen interviews. I didn't cry tears (often) but I did spend a lot of time crying out to God, looking for answers. I tried to keep everything in perspective - maybe there was something I was supposed to learn and that's why it was taking so long - but most of the time, I was just...sad.

It took almost 10 months from the start of my job search to get an interview for my new job. The call with the offer came almost a month later. I've cycled through a lot of emotions since then - the initial excitement, the relief that came with finally, FINALLY being able to move forward, a little anxiety about starting a new thing - but reflecting on the whole situation now, the overwhelming feeling is one of peace. 

Because, not because of my current circumstances, but because of the truth past circumstances reveal in hindsight. Those 10 months were hard. But when I look back at it now, I can see why things had to go the way they did. It didn't just teach me patience - it also reminded me of something I think I forgot: the best God can do will always be better than the best I can do. And he always, always wants what is best for me. 

So that's my takeaway from 2016. It was a lesson learned the very hard way, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I'm not sure what's in store for 2017, but 14 days in, I'm feeling optimistic. 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2