“I vow to lift you up when you are down and soar with you when you are in the clouds,” he said.

“I vow to always rise to your challenge and strive daily to better myself and our relationship,” I responded.

On this day five years ago, my husband and I threw these promises, these hopes and ambitions, into the universe when we committed to spend our lives together. We didn’t know then the peaks of joy and depths of sorrow that the universe would throw back at us. We didn’t know how life would take our words and hold them up as mirrors, reflecting the most breathtakingly beautiful and soul-crushingly difficult parts of ourselves and each other. We knew only of vague references to good times and bad, richer and poorer, sickness and health, without the foresight to see the unpredictable ways these notions would take shape into our own realities.

Five years seems so minuscule, but these handful of years have already held what feels like a lifetime of celebrations and tribulations, learning and growth, adventures of the ordinary and extraordinary. We’ve climbed ice-capped glaciers and sailed sparkling seas. We’ve flown planes over lakes and valleys, and we’ve traversed more miles in cars than we’d like to remember. We’ve moved and settled, made new friends and said goodbye to old ones, and started all over again and again. We’ve skied and swam and laughed and danced. We’ve relished in the good life and the abundant love.

We’ve also suffered together. We’ve mourned the loss of a child we would never know and the passing of a mother we could never imagine living without. We’ve seen dreams shattered and hopes let go. We’ve been forced to face demons, both individually and relationally. We’ve been pushed to give up vices and push back against our own bad habits, our own default defenses, as we’ve walked down rocky roads of our own making. We’ve mustered the strength to offer outstretched arms to one another, even when it felt like our own pain would overtake us.

And we’ve lived the redemption of life’s miracles. We’ve held the world in our hands as we’ve stared into our daughters’ eyes. We’ve watched how they change and grow and force us to do the same. We’ve been daily overcome by their needs and nightly redeemed by their pure love. We’ve given up sleep and time and money for the sake of this family we’re building. We’ve wondered at times if it’s all worth it and reassured one another during those dark nights of frustration that it absolutely is.

Still, we’ve seen how the roots of this life we’re growing together can push into the foundation of our marriage and form cracks of resentment. We’ve felt the frustration of never having enough time and always having too much work, and the alienation of miscommunication and misunderstanding. We’ve glimpsed how, left unchecked, this resentment has the power to crumble our core. And we’ve been diligent about reinforcing our souls against the false assumptions that silent fears can breed.

Through it all, we’ve persevered. We’ve experienced the ache of putting in just a little more time, just a little more effort, just a little more prayer. We’ve waited, sometimes seemingly endlessly, for the payoff. We’ve held each other through and held each other accountable as we’ve waited and worked – for a job, for a move, for a family, for a home, for a happy marriage, for a simple life. For all these things that we’ve built and are still building together daily.

We’ve held on to the roots of love that brought us here.

“But most of all I vow to love you… A love that I will actively work towards each day as we grow together, through good times and bad, allowing grace to infuse and strengthen our marriage,” I said.

“I vow to love you until that is the last emotion I can feel,” he replied.

Photos by Leah Bullard Photography