If you’re like me … when you exchanged your marriage vows, if they were the traditional ones, you may have made one promise that you don’t know how to keep.
Do you remember pledging … to love, honor and cherish?
Did you ever really stop to think about what those words mean … and what that promise is supposed to look like?
Do you know how to cherish your spouse?
Let’s take a minute to explore the meaning of this vow and some ways you can use it to rekindle the spark in your relationship.
Let’s Define Your Vow: Cherish means to hold dear, to treat tenderly, to keep in mind fondly. It is an action word that is naturally combined with tender emotion in the way you hold, treat and think about your spouse.
So one way you can enrich the emotional connection with your spouse is to begin thinking and treating him or her as your beloved.
We’ve stopped using the term “beloved” today. Yet it deserves to be revived and used in each modern relationship, because it encourages you to see your life-mate through loving eyes. Can’t you hear the difference … between the emotionally void word … spouse … and the heartfelt word … beloved?
Well now that we are trying to see our life mate through a new lens of being our beloved … let’s look at the Biblical passage that this vow comes from … to see what cherishing looks like:
That phrase comes from Ephesians 5: 28 – 30: In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
So, we are to love our spouses … to cherish them … to treat them … the same way we care and pamper ourselves … or if we need an even more challenging standard … the way Jesus loves you and me … His bride … the church.
What are some things that may be hindering me from acting tenderly … towards my beloved?
Here’s some that come to mind:
- Are you blaming your spouse … so your punishing not cherishing?
- Are you waiting for your beloved to change?
- Do you focus on what you are not getting out of your marriage?
- Have you given up hope that you can revive the spark of love and passion?
- Do you expect your beloved to live by your rules, desires, beliefs?
Once you recognize your blocks, are you willing to release them and improve your relationship?
