Commit To Another

When you commit to another, you speak loud your promises, look deep into irises and bind your soul to theirs, life to life. Testing will come, and you stand ready, bright and eager to light the dark ahead. Never to imagine that 38.5 hours into marriage you’d wake to a husband’s inflamed organ, dial 911, and set off on an emergency ferry in the middle of a snowy night, waves rolling five feet in the air, to an ambulance transfer and hour drive down twisted roads of tiny towns. Nor do you consider the strain of his stomach rushing him off to surgery to extract a decaying appendix quickly setting itself up to burst. Bleary-eyed and on the floor, you pray in the corner of the windowed waiting room, text your prayer warriors, run on fumes, wait. Or after successful surgery, you cannot see or stay with him because of COVID so you nap in the back of your Jeep in the parking lot, drive around town looking for a place to stay the night, and constantly call the nurses station to get an update on your new husband’s recovery. And when he’s finally released and you are there waiting by the door to help him into the passenger’s seat, you’re just so thrilled to touch him, breathe him in, you ignore the flurry of fear that had you gripping the steering wheel and praising God for victory on those barren country roads as you lost sight of the ambulance and counted down the miles to the emergency room. The next days are filled with preparing food, helping with clothes, washing and changing gauze on stitches and stilling your own breath at night to make sure you hear his. For better or worse, in sickness and in health. Where the rubber hits the road in marriage, so soon out the gate you exhale, “You’ve got to be kidding!” But you wouldn’t trade it for the world, for God is good, clearly present, and full of grace. This is what you said yes to, a mere days ago, for the rest of your life: serve one another, love each other deeply, for all that comes.

This is marriage week one, and I am so glad for it. So glad to be journeying this crazy adventure that is our life, that has been since day one. We have quite the story, you and I, such a unique love.

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As always, the delightful and breathlessly talented Hannah Toldt Photography did what she does best capturing our special day.