One Year Anniversary!

Today is our one year anniversary :-) To celebrate blog-style, I found the dvd of our wedding and finally wrote down our vows. I had them written on a piece of paper for the ceremony, but at the end of reciting them I dropped my paper, so I could hold both of his hands and look him in the eye... and I never saw that paper again! Anyway, it's been such a wonderful year. I love marriage. I can't even believe it's been a year....

The words he spoke to my heart and promised me on our wedding day:

I, Joshua, take you Leslie to be my bride.

I will do all within my power to protect you and to keep you pure.

I will never leav

e you and I will always choose you fi

rst.

I promise to run hand in hand with you gaze set dead ahead towards Jesus.

I will do everything to encourage you, to discover your strengths, and to inspire you.

I promise to intimately wrestle problems with you arm and arm together as a team, always giving you the benefit of the doubt.

I promise to love you and hold you when the sun shines and when the storms rage.

I promise you wealth, not in money, but in love and in passion.

I promise to speak with tenderness and compassion to you, and to always first try to seek to understand you.

I promise to you words of love to build walls around your heart to protect you from just the onslaught of lies the world will throw at you.

I promise to make you my lifelong girlfriend, to surprise you with romance and to recklessly pursue your heart.

I promise to love you more than my body, pursuing your wants ahead of my own and putting you ahead of myself in everything we do.

Leslie, you are the girl of my dreams, you're my real life princess. You don't complete me because I've already been made whole in Christ, but you compliment me in a way that couldn't be matched by anyone else on the planet. I will never leave you. I will always love you. These things I vow to you today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

The words I spoke to his heart and vowed to him on our wedding day:

I Leslie, take you Joshua, to be my husband.

I promise to love you always, when our love is simple and comes easily and when it takes great effort and patience.

I promise to honor and respect you in word and in action, both in and outside of our home.

I promise to stand by your side in times of sorrow and struggle and I promise to dance and laugh with you in times of joy and celebration.

I promise to serve God with you, in whatever way He asks of us.

I will always trust your leadership,

and, I will look to you for companionship and wisdom before anyone else.

I promise you total trust and complete honesty because without it our love can't be true.

I will always give you the benefit of the doubt.

You have a wild heart and I won't try to change or tame it,

but I promise to pursue you and your dreams, to help you find wh

atever it is that makes you come alive and to encourage you to follow those desires.

By Gods grace, I promise to fulfill your emotional and physical needs,

and to never ever become a source of your unhappiness.

I promise to put you and your needs ahead of my own, dying to self in hopes that I can better honor and serve you.

I promise to pursue my own relationship with God, personally, and to do my best to pour his sacrificial, unconditional love on you.

I promise to put great effort into our love, to do everything tha

t I can so that we stay deeply, and passionately, and completely in love forever, for the rest of our lives.

I will always be faithful to you. I will never give a piece of any of my heart to anyone else.

Joshua, you are the man of my dreams, you're my real life knight in shining armor. You don't complete me because I've already been made whole in Christ as well, but I believe that you compliment me in a way that nobody else could ever possibly match. I will never, ever give up on us. and I will be with you forever. This is my vow to you today and I will do it forever, the rest of my life, ok? I promise.