The Joy Dare (week one)

I mentioned in a previous post that I have taken up the Joy Dare.  In the past week one of the days we were asked to think of a blue gift to be thankful for and I really battled to come up with something blue. Then I glanced down to my ring finger. I have a beautiful wedding ring made of a circle of diamonds surrounding a sapphire.

Ring from ringsbylauren

A ring that my husband and I searched for together, designed together.  A ring that held a promise as we made all our starry-eyed plans for the future. A ring that I waited eight years for my husband to place on my finger, binding me to him through our promise to God to stay together till death do us part.

Little did I know at the time the challenges that we would have to overcome to stay true to those vows. We both brought emotional baggage into our relationship that has caused many tears. Illness on my part, the loss of our first precious child, going through the process of adoption only to find out I was pregnant then our second baby coming eight weeks early and spending a month in NICU, a very unplanned pregnancy with baby number three, career changes, house moves, severe financial difficulties that nearly saw us losing all we had. In all this we have manged to stay together. I has not always been easy going and sometimes it has just seemed easier to give up.

Yet we are bound together by a ring and a promise, to each other and our Father, that this marriage would be until death us do part. This beautiful ring with it's pretty blue sapphire is a daily reminder of that promise and a reason for daily thanksgiving that God has heard our promise and is helping us to keep our marriage safe.