“Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style some day. Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you’re going I’m going your way. Two drifters off to see the world. There’s such a lot of world to see.”

–Music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

Thirty-one years ago, I walked down a church aisle to make public vows Matt and I had written in private for each other prior to our wedding. I remember being filled with such joy I had to gather all the willpower I possessed to stop a massive flow of tears, because I don’t cry with elegance.

And I remember looking into the eyes of the young man I had fallen in love with eight years before and experiencing a heavenly blessing of unreserved conviction: that we could give ourselves completely, trusting each other with the gifts God had given us at the time of our births.

We did not fully understand all that we were promising that day in front of nearly 350 family and friends, seated in the pews of our hometown church. How could we? We had only lived in the relative safety of our family homes and college settings. And yet, I know that one of the best decisions we ever made was voiced that very day — in our youth.

Now, 31 years later, I know we would not be celebrating this anniversary had we not shared a faith in Christ — serving as the foundation to our relationship as a dating couple and today as a married one. We choose faith because we are sinners, saved by God’s grace. Sound complicated and religious? I don’t intend it to. It’s a basic fact in our relationship: we readily acknowledge that we are as vulnerable and human as the rest. We believe that God brought us together and gave us gifts intended to be used in our marriage, in our efforts to parent children, in our roles as family members, in the lives of our friends and in our choices to work and serve in our community.

Yet there is also a realization that we don’t have all it takes. In spite of our failings, God offers us a relationship with Him as a gift, not one we earned or deserve. We believe we were both created with deficits and we work to fill them with Christ rather than money, power, prestige, drugs and alcohol or excessive and wasteful time spent mindlessly entertaining ourselves with all that is available. And certainly not aided by a constant look for other humans to fill ever-changing needs.

Our marriage has been filled with mountaintop glories and valley trudges. That’s because faith in Christ does not exempt anyone from struggle. But when there are rough stretches, we remind ourselves that God is doing something in us and those around us. He’s at work: He’s refining, teaching, preparing us for a deeper joy today and an eternity with purpose.

“We’re after the same rainbow’s end — waiting ‘round the bend, my huckleberry friend, Moon River and me.”