Ten years ago my college sweetheart and I said "I do." We made a covenant before God and in front of many witnesses. At the time I realized what the promise I was making meant but you never fully understand until you live it. When you are 23, healthy and have your whole life ahead of you it's hard to grasp the weight of the promise you are making. It's hard to think about the weight of sickness when all you have known is health. It's hard to grasp poor when all you have known is plenty. When you look down the road hoping for all of the "betters" it's hard to fathom the worse. We do it daily all around the world, people promise: "for richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and health, until death do us part." When I got married I wondered why we made that promise to one another and now ten years later, I have finally learned the answer to that question, because there are good times but there are also bad, there is sickness as well as health, there are times of plenty and times when our store houses are empty. It's not a promise for just in case life gets hard, it's a promise because life will be hard. Spencer and I have had to live out our vows over the past 10 years. We have seen and experienced all of the things that we told each other we would be there for.
I love this song, it makes me cry, it makes me think, it reminds me that I made a covenant with the one true God and it points me to the only person who can help me keep that vow. I wish that I could learn how to "dance in the minefields." Frankly, I am pretty good at hunkering down and waiting out the storms but dancing in them...not so much. Maybe that's the lesson that God will teach me in the next 10 years.
"Cause we bear the light of the son of man so there's nothing left to fear.
I'll walk with you in the shadow land, til the shadows disappear.
Cause he promised not to leave us and his promises are true
so in the face of all the chaos baby, I can dance with you."- Andrew Peterson
Such good lyrics. We do bear the light of God's son. We are children of God. There is nothing that God cannot do in and through the lives of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So maybe you find yourself in the middle of the sickness, health, want, wealth, good times, bad but one thing is for sure, God is Lord over all things.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-to the one and only God our saviour be the glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for-evermore! Amen. -Jude 1:24-25
