Elsie and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary this year. Yep, we got married in 1968. I was the ripe old age of 22 and Elsie 21. We were very young, very immature, and selfish. By the grace of God we stayed together and grew each other up. One reason why we stayed married through all the ups and downs of our marriage is we took our wedding vows seriously. When the minister asked us to repeat after him, “I, Irv/Elsie, take thee, Irv/Elsie, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth," we meant every word even though I’m not so sure I understood every word. Oh, I knew what better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, and health meant but I had no idea what plighting meant or what a troth was. I also found out how little I understood about love and even less about cherish.
Love is probably the most written about, sung about, and declared word in the English language. There are hundreds of books written about marital love but precious little has been written about the word cherish. In our wedding ceremony we vow to cherish our spouse but what does it mean to do that? How do we cherish one another? Fortunately a wonderful new book by Gary Thomas, Cherish: The One Word that Changes Everything for Your Marriage (2017), explores the term. It is one of the best marriage books I’ve ever read. Thomas writes like a normal person. He doesn’t use superfluous words or technical terms like a theologian, sociologist, or marriage counselor. It is an easy read.
What are some of the qualities which mark cherishing your spouse? Without spoiling the book for you, here are five of the qualities that Thomas says mark cherishing:
- To cherish is to take pleasure in showcasing the excellence of our spouse to others.
- To cherish is to view our spouse as our Adam or Eve, the only man or woman in the world for us.
- To cherish is to take pleasure in the pleasure of our spouse, putting their needs above our own, making them beautiful in public and nurturing them in private.
- To cherish is to notice our spouse, pursue our spouse, honor our spouse.
- To cherish our spouse is to refuse to speak with contempt to or about our spouse but rather to speak words of thankfulness.
I hope you’ll buy the book but even more that you’ll begin cherishing the gift of your spouse. May God help you to cherish your Adam or Eve.
Cherishing Elsie, the wife of my youth, my Eve,
Irv