I promise to love and hon­or who you are rather than who I imag­ine you to be, and I promise to present my­self hon­est­ly and open­ly to you.

I promise to sup­port you when your strength is chal­lenged and to ask for your help in my weakness.

I promise to hold you as com­plete­ly in my heart in the dif­fi­cult times as in the joy­ous ones.

I promise to laugh with you and to laugh at myself.

I promise to take you se­ri­ous­ly when se­ri­ous­ness is called for.

I promise to hold you while you cry, and to cry while you hold me.

I promise to seek God with you, brave­ly and con­stant­ly, hold­ing you clos­er than any oth­er hu­man to the heart of my heart, with on­ly God in the very center.

…be­cause I be­lieve we are stronger to­geth­er than we are apart and that we can grow more in our in­tel­lect, our com­pas­sion, and in our faith to­geth­er than we could alone.

I promise to stand firm be­side you as your part­ner in pur­su­ing knowl­edge, ad­ven­ture, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, peace, and responsibility.

I promise to care for you as best I can, and to en­cour­age you to stretch and grow and care for yourself.

I promise to love and nour­ish my­self, as a child of God and as the one whom you have chosen.