Over the years, God has shown me more and more about my relationship with Him through my relationships here on earth. God has taught me so much about love through my son, about acceptance through several friends, compassion through people hurting that I meet, forgiveness in people that have hurt me, and trust in my dependance on my church family. Yet there is a very powerful part of my relationship that God has revealed to me through my marriage to my incredible wife, commitment.
I think far too many people take their wedding vows far too lightly. When people are standing before a Pastor, looking at their spouse and say things like, “Do you take this person for all times, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, for better or for worse, until death do you part?” do they really know what they are doing? I know my wife and I took our vows very seriously.
We come from very different family backgrounds. She has always been, and still is, very close to most of her family. Her mother and father are still together and our neighbors. Her brother and his family are our other neighbors. She talks to her mom almost everyday and family get-togethers are commonplace. I come from a broken home, my mother and father divorced when I was 4. My mom, bothers and I all moved to east TN when I was 9. My relationship with my father has been difficult because of distance and though things are very good now, it was not the smoothest ride growing up. Not that it was all my parents fault, my older brother and I did not make it easy on them. Yet both of the backgrounds drove my wife and I to the same conclusion: Divorce would never be an option in our lives. She had never known it and never wanted to. I had lived through the pain it caused. So when we began talking about marriage, even though we were young, we both were very open and serious about not even mentioning the word to each other. It would not be an option.
With both of us knowing that, it has caused us to be intentional in working on our relationship. We truly have been, from the beginning, committed to each other. Now, there have been difficult times, times of poverty, times of extreme sickness, and even times where the “worse” was very prevalent. But neither one of us has ever been ready to give up. That is what commitment is. Willing to stay faithful even when it is hard.
That is what God has taught me. That being committed to Him, just as being committed to my wife, will always yield a positive outcome. It might be hard to accept what God wants me to do from time to time, but just as my wife works in my best intrest because she is committed to me, God works in my best intrest because He is committed to me and I to Him.
Today, I have been committed to my wife, and she to me, for fourteen years. It has been a great journey. I truly look forward to being committed to her for many more as long as God will allow. Happy anniversary, Missy. I love you!
In Christ,
jon walton
Fourteen Years...
