Vows that last

By Rob Furlong
Challenge Newspaper June 2008

This month Karen and I will celebrate our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. As I look back over that time I realise what a remarkable journey it has been. Both aged 20 when we wed, after the first six months we had resigned our jobs, packed up our Datsun 180B and headed north to Queensland.

The Queensland years were good to us. I was pastor of a church in a little country town called Toogoolawah. Young (I was 23!), idealistic and very naïve, I learnt lessons there that have stayed with me to this day. And by my side was my bride, Karen.

We were blessed with four beautiful children, three of them born in Cairns, where we stayed for 7½ years. Cairns was a steep learning curve, there were many highs and the occasional low, but the best part was that Karen was with me.

Fourteen years ago we moved to W.A. And in that time we have seen three of our children find their life partners and marry (the third, Kate, was married just last month). And later this year we will become grandparents — twice!

It has been twenty-seven full, but also, very fulfilling years. But above all else, we have done them together.

That doesn’t mean that we haven’t had our lows. I have sat with Karen and done my best to love and comfort her through four miscarriages. There have been times of deep pain for both of us as we have submitted to the process of becoming more like Jesus. In the past two years we have taken some pretty severe blows as I have had to work through a personal burn-out brought on by overwork. But we are still here, still together and still very much in love. Why is that?

For one, I believe it is because of the overwhelming goodness of God. But further, Karen and I have had a deep and passionate commitment to each other because of the vows we took twenty-seven years ago. I personally believe that wedding vows are taken far too lightly by the majority of people today. People make commitments to each other and then break them with absolutely no compunction at all at the first sign of marital discord.

A vow is a solemn promise or undertaking to do something. So when you vow to stay with your partner “Until death parts you” but then divorce five or twenty five years down the track, you have not fulfilled your vow. Now, before you inundate me with emails, let me acknowledge that I understand that people make mistakes and that I also do not claim to know every person’s individual circumstances. All I am simply trying to do is to draw attention to the importance of vows and of being people who keep their word — a quality that has diminished greatly in our modern society.

Karen is my partner for life. She is the wife God has given me. She is my one and only. I made promises to her twenty-seven years ago and by God’s grace and with His help, I intend to keep them.

Do you find yourself in a bind today? Perhaps you are questioning your marriage and are contemplating getting out. I have some really simple advice for you: remember your vows and commit again, with God’s help, to fulfilling them.

For many years, Karen and I have tried to find creative ways to remind each other of our wedding vows and of our intention to keep them. So if the readers will allow me a small indulgence, Hon’, this is for you:

“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth chapter 1, verses 16-17).