Wife: Reflection on Our Wedding Vows

Us in our natural state

Since it is my anniversary, it naturally makes me reflect on the last three years.  Kevin and I have been through a lot! And I do mean a lot!  But I think what amazes me most is that our covenant is everlasting and I live in that every day.  I can honestly say that the understanding of God that marriage gives me most is what eternity looks like and what eternity means.  It is something as normal and commonplace as dinner together and it is as vast as loving someone you are nowhere near.  It is both the everyday, existing with in time, and the eternal, existing outside of it. 

Kevin and I have not been together for an anniversary yet.  Maybe our fourth year will be the charm.  But of course, it leaves me reflecting on the time that we have shared.  He has been with me through sickness (and a LOT of it) and through health.  He has been with me through school, through training, through my first two years in the Army, through an NTC rotation, through my first deployment, my first promotion, through his father's death, through him starting a new job, us moving across the country to Colorado, through raising two little puppies and so much more.  And yet, all of these things are so simple, so natural, and just a part of life. It doesn't surprise me that we have been together through them. It doesn't surprise me that we come out on the other side stronger than we were before we tackle each obstacle.

Marriage is the thing that feels common. It feels ordinary. It is the everyday. But it is also from the divine. It gives me the most security and peace I have ever felt outside the cross. It is the most assurance I have known outside of salvation. It is part of my identity and yet does not define me. It is both my cross and my blessing. It is the place that causes me the most joy and (on rare occasion) the most pain.

Kevin is still the most amazing man I have ever met.  He is the first person outside of my family to show me what sacrificial love looks like.  He has always been willing and happy to let me have my way over him pushing his.  He is someone who I can have any conversation with.  He is very intelligent and very down to earth.  He is my spiritual leader, my counselor, my disciplor, my mentor, my teacher, my editor, my provider, my protector, my comforter, my lover, my friend and I am so overjoyed to know that all of this comes together in two amazing words: my husband. With him, I am my most vulnerable and my most free.  I have the utmost respect for him.  And the most astounding thing to me is that he chose me as his wife.

And on this day three years ago, my husband and I stood in front of our family and friends to enter a covenant before God.  It was on that day where we said these vows.

My husband:
I vow to you these things which I can only fulfill by the grace of God.
As Christ loves the church so I vow to give myself daily for your sake.
As Christ serves the church so I vow to serve you with humility, patience, and love.
As Christ provides for the church so I vow to provide for your needs.
As Christ makes the church more like himself so I vow to point you to Him in all things.
As Christ leads His church so I vow to lead you as I follow Christ.
And just as Christ has promised never to leave or forsake His church so I vow to never depart from or abandon you, for richer or forpoorer, in sickness and in health. For better or for worse Until death do us part

Me:
I vow to you these things which I can only fulfill by the grace of God.
As the church is to respect Christ unconditionally so I vow to respect you also.
As the church is to love Christ above all others so I vow to delight in you alone.
As the church is to submit to Christ so I vow to submit to you.
As the church is to represent Christ in all that she does so I vow to represent you with dignity and honor.
As the church is to serve Christ so I vow to serve you with humility and patience.
And just as the church will forever remain the bride of Christ so I vow to never depart from or abandon you, for richer or for poorer In sickness and in health. For better or for worse Until death do us part

Afghanistan: Number 17

Ok, so I am a day late, but at least I am not a dollar short.  Here is my 17th blog post from Afghanistan for my 20th week.  Life has been pretty good and also pretty bland here in Afghanistan.  So I will just jump right in in my usual style.

Mental:  I have really been doing a ton for Lean Six Sigma and I had better get my butt on it in the next week or I am going to find myself in some trouble.  I am already behind from starting over and I can't honestly say I have made much effort to do any better.  But I have been challenging my brain in other ways through book reading and studying.  But I will touch on that under the spiritual paragraph, so I won't touch on it now.

Financial: I finally bought another stock.  It has a high EPS of about 8.26 and their next earnings report comes out Thursday.    I bought it the other day and currently haven't made anything on it, but long term, it seems like this stock is just continuing to climb.  I actually owned it a couple of months ago and it has gained a lot since then.  I kind of wish I had held onto it, but cest la vie.  I am going to watch it carefully for the next few days to see what it does.  I am expecting this to be a short to mid-term stock.  I have been looking at several others too, but I want to be at a safer point with this one first.  Within the first few days of buying a stock, even if you sell it, the money isn't available right away.  So in another day or so, I will probably make my next purchase.

Physical: It has been a good workout week for me.  I only missed one workout day, which was more because I had miscalculated the time accidentally and woke up too late.  And as I have been working out more, I have found that my appetite has been decreasing (which generally happens to me when I am getting into a consistent schedule).  Unfortunately, because I haven't been as hungry, I also haven't been getting my green drinks in.  So I need to make sure I am keeping up good habits there.  I also need to learn to balance my running speed.  Since I have started incorporating sprints and going faster for shorter periods of time, I am starting out too fast on some of my longer runs and am burning out too quickly.  Which is an issue because I am still planning on running the army ten-miler in October.  I want to run that at an 8:30-9:00 mile but I keep taking off at a 7:30 pace and burning out.  I need to get used to both distances and train my body to do it.  And what I really need is to be able to run at night.  I always end up sucking wind in the mornings because it just keeps getting hotter the longer I go.  Or I need to get up earlier... which I am not good at. 

Emotional: This week has been a good one.  I am connecting really well with my husband and we seem to be at the best place we have been this whole deployment.  To be honest though, I think we have just in the process of constant improvement in our relationship since I got here.  I still question as to whether or not I am a good wife and if I really can be when I am so far away, but as I see my marriage prosper, I guess I have to answer that yes.  I think the reality is, God's got this and I don't need to worry about it.  I just need to respect and love my husband and the rest will fall into place.  But that isn't always easy, especially as I am within a week of my anniversary and have to square with the fact that I have never been with my husband on our anniversary.

I also feel at a good place emotionally in my workplace.  I feel like I am connecting with others better and am not as impatient as I first was.  Since we moved to Bagram, it feels like we are all cramped, all the time.  And that really used to bother me at first.  But now we are reaching a point of greater cohesion and I am enjoying the relationships I am building.

My morning journaling

Spiritual:  Well, the biggest update here is that I pretty much finished my first exegesis (a paper on a specific topic or text, usually in reference to a religious document) regarding the doctrine of covenants.  I am not going to go into it here much, but I completed my first draft, had Kevin review it and made some updates.  It is currently 17 pages in length.  I think I am going to find some ways to break it up into smaller chunks and get rid of some of the details to post here on my blog.  Don't worry though, I will make the full length text available to you too.  This has been quite the under taking and has taken me a little over a week to complete.  It involved a lot of reading and research and has been mentally taxing and spiritually draining.  But I also think this is part of the reason why God has called me into a time of fasting and prayer.

I have also been doing really well at keeping up with my reading and praying.  I find that an hour in the mornings is almost too little to read and pray, but that really seems dependent on what I am reading, how much and how much is sticking with me.  I have been enjoying taking notes of everything in the mornings because it helps me to see the fruits of my efforts over time.  I am also still praying for the guy in my unit that I have been praying for pretty much since we got here.  I think I am nearing 150 days straight of praying for him, and plan to continue doing so.  I have also continued to fast and pray for my friends who I love dearly but am not on the terms I would like to see us on.  But such is life and I am good with giving both of these cases over to God and let Him answer them to me in His own way and in His own time.  For now, I will just keep praying.