Leave and cleave

There’s something about a wedding. However cynical we may think we have become in the light of the growing divorce rate, we can’t help ourselves. A wedding touches something deep within us. We shed a tear. We want this happy couple before us to stay this happy forever. For a brief moment, we believe in the power of love to survive everything. Weddings are a joyous celebration of love and commitment, a public declaration that these two people love each other and want to commit to a joint life together ‘for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish, ’til death do us part’.

And sometimes they do. Real life versions of the touching story from ‘The Notebook’ (if you haven’t seen this film, please do – it will melt the hardest heart and restore your faith in faithfulness….) do exist. We hear of them and read about them and they move us to tears. Of course, we all know that a wedding is then followed by a lifelong working out of these vows. When I got ill on our honeymoon, my new husband joked that he hadn’t expected to be tested on ‘in sickness and in health’ quite so soon. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary earlier this year. To be honest, I felt a bit of a fraud. Here we were, celebrating our marriage, when quite a lot of the time, it has been messy and hard and as far from the romantic notion we embraced on our wedding day as we could imagine. Our marriage has not been what we anticipated or hoped for. The stresses and strains of everyday life have threatened to drag us under repeatedly. The best I could celebrate is that we were still here. We had lived out our commitment. And to celebrate, we got a dog and as we all know, a dog is for life and not just for a Silver Wedding Anniversary, so I guess neither of us is planning to bail just yet!

These traditional vows include the line ‘according to God’s holy ordinance’. I guess this refers to this verse in Genesis –

Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Genesis 1:24

I grew up hearing this verse with the words ‘leave and cleave’ and had no idea what ‘cleave’ meant. I like ‘cling’ better. We have had to do our fair share of clinging on to each other, when arguments (about money mainly) and our children (who are experts at this) have tried to drive a wedge between us.

Anyway, enough of us. I am off to the wedding reception of one of my work colleagues and friends, Mark, tonight. Looking forward to a lovely celebration with a lovely, lovely man and his special partner Sylvia (on her birthday, no less – Mark figured he could give her no better present than his love and commitment on her birthday!).

We believe in love and commitment, because that is how we were made. We were made to be in relationship. Those of us who are lucky enough to have that should never take it for granted. As my friend said on Facebook only the other day

To have someone who accepts/puts up with the irrational, crazy, lunatic parts of you…….. — feeling blessed.