Restore, Chapter 6--I Do, Again

I am sure that the traditional marriage vows are familiar to you. Those were the promises that we renewed in our "Restore" ceremony.

Do you, ERIC take ANNA, to be your lawful wedded wife, promising before God that you will be to her a faithful, loving and devoted husband? 

Do you, ANNA, take ERIC, to be your lawful husband, promising before God that you will be to him a faithful, loving wife?

ERIC, with ANNA'S hand in yours, pledge to her your faith by repeating after me. 

I, ERIC, take you ANNA, 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 and to cherish till death do us part.

ANNA, with ERIC'S hand in yours, pledge to him your faith. 

I, ANNA, take you ERIC, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part.

Why renew vows? Aren't these vows and promises supposed to be forever? Because they are forever, there shouldn't be any need to repeat them, right?

These are questions we asked ourselves before we did this. For myself, I might have said before that renewing vows was at the very least, unnecessary. But a girl can change her mind. Always.

The first time we said them (on our wedding day), without realizing it then, I thought that our romantic love would overcome any fault our humanness would display in our forthcoming forever togetherness.

I WAS WRONG.

If anything has shown through in our 15 years together is our humanity. For the most part, our romantic love didn't hold up DIDDLELY-SQUAT. Excuse my language.

When I was younger, I loved a good romance. If I could use a fictional character to describe myself, it would be Anne of Green Gables. My family members can testify to my semblance to Anne with an "e". My real life, while no means tragic (though Anne would have thought it much more interesting if it was), left something to be desired. It was easy to find what I desired in my dreams of the future. I mean, the story of Cinderella had to come from some real life circumstance, didn't it? People don't just make stuff like that up, do they?

I have taken the liberty to put in bold lettering all of the reasons that romantic notions aren't so great for a lifetime of marriage.

World English Dictionary

romance
— n
1.	a love affair, esp an intense and happy but short-lived affair involving young people
2.	love, esp romantic love idealized for its purity or beauty
3.	a spirit of or inclination for adventure, excitement, or mystery
4.	a mysterious, exciting, sentimental, or nostalgic quality, esp one associated with a place
5.	a narrative in verse or prose, written in a vernacular language in the Middle Ages,  dealing with strange and exciting adventures of chivalrous heroes
6.	any similar narrative work dealing with events and characters remote from ordinary life
7.	the literary genre represented by works of these kinds
8.	(in Spanish literature) a short narrative poem, usually an epic or historical ballad
9.	a story, novel, film, etc, dealing with love, usually in an idealized or sentimental way
10.	an extravagant, absurd, or fantastic account or explanation

I know that God LOVES some LOVE. He is the one who created those warm fuzzy-duzzies that we feel when we are around someone that makes our heart go from tick, tick, tick to pitter-patter, pitter-patter. But, frankly, the Song of Solomon has never been sung at my house.

I'm sure I'm not the only woman, whom while waiting to hear, "Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead" from her husband when he returned from work, only heard, "I'm so hungry I could eat a flock of goats. What's for dinner?"

If Eric told me today, "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." I would be hard pressed not to say, "Liar, liar, pants on fire." Because he KNOWS me and there IS flaw in me.

After a time, those same romantic notions that you had in the beginning that made your spouse a prince, can turn and make him out to be the evil villain. In one character you could see no wrong and the other no good. Both of those characters aren't real. I know. I've tried to make Eric both of them. And I'm sure that I have moved far away from princess status and closer to the evil witch than he or I ever thought possible.

So, as I stood there this time, repeating those words, it was without any romantic notions. We have lived, are living and will live REAL LIFE together. The kind of life that won't wrap up neatly after a central conflict.

We stood together this time, looking each other in the eye, echoing the promises that we made years ago, essentially saying, "I know the real you. I choose let the good mean more than the bad. And I promise to try harder than ever to be what God tells me to be and what I need to be for you and our family." I see now that while every married couple might not be compelled to renew their vows, Eric and I needed to say those things to each other again.

We can't go back. My love for Eric will never again be the innocent, worshipful kind that I had for him before. He can't go back and place me on a pedestal. I've realized that I don't want to "keep the romance alive". Romance hasn't been that good to me. But that doesn't mean that God can't give us a new love, His love--one that will knock our socks off.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; 

love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵ does not act unbecomingly; 

it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 

^7 [b]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails;

I Corinthians 13:4-8a (NASB)

Bro. Dennis charged us with this as the ceremony ended:

"ERIC and ANNA, may you be a blessing and an inspiration to those who observe the faithful fulfillment of your vows to each other day by God-given day!  Learn from the past, let it instruct and correct...but, live in the present!  That is where life is found...where love is tasted...and where a new future is forged as you walk together hand in hand  to face whatever is before you, confident that God will use whatever challenges you face to strengthen your love for each other, for your children, and for your God as you trust in Him to complete what He has this day begun.  Yours is a love story waiting to be lived!  Go...LIVE IT...without regret!!!"

Even though we insert our names into vows that are said by millions (or billions), we can't do that with our lives. There is only one Eric and Anna and it is best that we live our own love story, the one that God has made especially for us. In that story alone will we find our perfect fit and God's amazing plan.

references and acknowledgements:

www.dictionary.com
(Song of Songs 4:1-7 NIV)
Dennis Smith
Russ and Megan Johnson-Photo Credit