“ I promise to love you, comfort you, honor and proect you,
and forsaking all others, be faithful to you, for as long as we both shall live.
I acknowledge you to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish, and honour,
till death do us part, according to God’s holy law and this is my solemn vow.
I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage.
With my body I honour you, all that I am I give to you, all that I have I share with you,
within the love of God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.”
Several months ago, I remember a very old and wizened preacher come up to say to you, that you would be a role model to all husbands, teaching them how to love and cherish their wives. And for that reason, that God would be “very fussy” with you, because He wanted our marriage to reflect God’s love for us- unwavering, nourishing and cleansing.
“How long have you two been married?” I remember the white-haired preacher asking us, in front of the entire church.
“Three months,” we said.
I saw the preacher’s shocked look. “Well, God must be very gracious to send this message to the both of you, so early on in your marriage, for both of you to start off on the right foot.”
I remember being in tears for several hours afterward- somehow, that message pierced deep into my spirit, as I felt the profound and heavy weight of glory, and privilege of being your wife rest upon me. On our wedding day last year, you had promised to nourish and cherish me. You had often talked about the husband’s responsibility of “cleansing” his wife, purifying her with the word of God, and you have held true to that.
Fast forward eight months later on our second wedding day in Canada, I know we are both amazed at the opportunity God has given us to renew our vows. Looking back, you have been faithful to the calling God has given you to love, cherish, honour and protect me. You have been an example to many without knowing it, in your own quiet ways, ridiculous humour and radically outrageous love. Men and young boys are drawn to you, acquaintances just bordering on being strangers look you up and are drawn to you, seeking advice from you on loving their girlfriends and wives. You simply have that non-judgemental, brotherly quality about you (a pastor’s heart, as you rightly said), that draws people to you. In your own quiet way, you have become a role model without really trying.
In you own exemplary way, you have shown me what it means to love and cherish one’s wife. And in that, I have seen a different and deeper dimension of God’s unfailing love for us. I am, in my own brokenness, difficult to love. In spite of your commitment, I have rejected and hurled your love back at you like mud, whenever those old feelings of abandonment and rejection from my childhood surface. They have caused us grief, one night too many of words pushed at each other like unforgiving brick walls, but they always end with you enveloping me in a big bear hug, either me or you saying “I’m sorry” and us acknowledging that we are broken, fallen, sinful people.
“Be patient with yourself,” you would say. “We have lived 25 and 32 of our years being single- now we are only just learning to live with each other. We are doing great.”
It does not sound like a pacifying lie because I know you work hard at our marriage. You dread but also faithfully plan those weekly one-hour talks where we discuss and talk about trigger issues and hot topics in our relationship- we try to clear our emotional bank accounts regularly, although this can be most draining, painful, emotional and tiring at times. “We are doing great,” then becomes of great encouragement and significance.
“Do you ever wonder if you would wake up one morning and discover you didn’t really know the person you married?” I am always asking loaded questions. I am always asking doyouloveme, whydoyouloveme, whatifidiedfirst,whatifyoudiedfirst, whatifiranawayoneday, haveiputonweight… questions surfaced from a fragmented heart.
And you always have the right answers to say, “No, I don’t wonder that. Because every day I am learning, discovering more about you. This is an adventure, an exploration. “
You grin.
Since being with you, I have grown and healed tremendously. This has been the fruit of being watered daily with nourishment, encouragement and undeserved praise. Most of all, it touches me deeply to find myself accepted and encouraged as a creator, a speaker, an artist, and a writer. You have never put a lid on my success, or try to imprison me to cement your own security. You are happy to lead, and also happy to cheer me on, actively finding ways to celebrate my achievements (even if they are as small as sitting through a highly dreaded meeting) and further my giftings.
I am working on my fourth book now. God has given me a vision to publish it sooner than I expect. The pressure I have put on myself has been great, as usual. Every day my mind is ticking- it rests on a dream and awakes trying to recapture the silhouettes to put in on paper, it agonises through periods of silent stretching, it sucks and drains my body of emotions to weave it into a tapestry of colour. I need time and space to write and to draw. And you are generous to make it happen for me. You are determined for me to be the best I can be, and to fulfil the call that God has placed in my heart. You have a husband’s heart.
So thank you. Thank you for watering our love, and for watering me. My heart has bloomed differently, I have blossomed more radiantly since receiving your love. And I am most grateful that when I, besides myself, hurl those undeserving mud-balls at you ungraciously, you are always quick to catch them, safekeeping them, ready to use them as fertile soil for the garden we are building together. Thank you for always enveloping me in your big, comforting bear hug, when I am most unloveable, and least deserving.
Thank you for cherishing and nourishing me, for having a husband’s heart.
Photo by Sandra Bosscher, taken in Mississauga, Ontario
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that she would be holy and blameless.
So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,
because we are members of His body.”
– Ephesians 5:25-30
* Thank you for sending all your prayers and love. Updates about how our 2nd wedding in Canada went will come up in time.