I Do—The Two Most Famous Last Words

Marriage will bring happy times and incredibly hard times. The adventure is thrilling, exhausting, and totally worth it. When you say your vows you make a choice to love through the joys, through the pains ... all the way to death.

I once went to a wedding where the couple wrote their own vows, which actually weren't vows at all. They were loving sentiments like:

I will always want to be by your side.

Call me old fashioned but I like the traditional marriage vows. It's like whoever wrote them wanted to make sure the bride and groom knew there would be times when they wouldn't want to be together and was saying, It's okay. It doesn't mean it's over.

I promise to be true to you...

For better—or worse.

For richer—or poorer.

In good times—and in bad.

I'm told we owe these words to the medieval Sarum Rite of England. This practical way of handling marriage was good enough for medieval Catholics and it is good enough for me.

As Andrew Peterson sings, "I do are the two most famous last words...'cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down."

Yes, you will have happy times. You will have sad times too. But a promise is a promise.

These ups and downs do not render your vows of fidelity null. (Assuming the vows were valid to begin with—which is a topic for another post.)

Faithful to the end

I'll never forget how Bertha, my elderly neighbor, expressed it. She used to talk a mile a minute and one day in the middle of her marathon she told me some stuff about her late husband that made my eyes bulge. Let's just say he was no Prince Charming.

I struggled for something comforting to say. "Well... but you stuck with him."

Bertha cocked her head to one side and shrugged: "Well, yes. I guess I was."

In case you missed it, she thought I had told her she was stuck with him. She was as hard of hearing as she was faithful.

In her mind she was just that—stuck with him.

Vows pack a lot of power

Vows meant something and her generation knew it. Not just the Catholic element either. My husband's grandmother, Emily, was an unchurched Protestant and was to some degree anti-Catholic. Yet, when she married, she solemnly promised to raise her children Catholic, even though her Catholic husband barely ever went to church. And she kept that promise.

My husband's mother spent many years praying for both of her parents. Her father received the sacraments just months before his death. When Emily's turn came, it was even more dramatic. A priest (friend of the family) paid her a visit in the hospital to prepare her for death. He had no intention of bringing up Catholicism—at first. But something in the conversation prompted him to ask if she'd like receive the Eucharist.

She thought. "Maybe another time," she said.

Then she stopped. "Yes," she said firmly. "I'd like to receive Him now."

Thus he heard her confession and gave her Holy Communion. She died a month later.

Emily's promise didn't stop there.

About three years ago, when my mother in law died, her only sibling, a brother, knelt by her casket. "I'm going to go back to church, Tina," he said aloud. "Just like you always wanted." And he did. While he was dying, his children (though not Catholic themselves) made sure a priest visited him in the hospital and gave him a Catholic burial.

Promises. Promises.

Look at all the lives which were affected because Grandma Emily meant hers.

You can't base a commitment on nice feelings

Feelings come and go. You can't base a commitment on a prediction. How do you know you'll always want someone by your side? You might, in fact, need a retreat from your spouse. You can't base a commitment on luck. You never know what's coming or how you are going to take it.

You can only base a commitment on a promise, a promise made to God.

But never fear, God knows that promises are not always easy to keep. So in return He promises you His help.

Aren't you glad you're stuck with Him?