Eight-year-old Tad (not his real name) watched with wide-eyed amazement as his parents renewed their marriage vows.

Tad’s mom and dad were not alone. I had been preaching a series of sermons on marriage, so I concluded the last sermon on commitment to a lifelong covenant by inviting husbands and wives to stand up, join hands, and renew their marriage vows en masse. Men and women all over the building stood and faced one another, as their children and others looked on, some with tears in their eyes. But Tad had no tears. The grin across his face could not have been wider if somebody had taken their fingers and tried to stretch the corners of his mouth.

When his parents finished renewing their vows and sat down, Tad spoke up. “You didn’t say your marriage vows,” he claimed. “Yes we did,” his mom and dad answered. “No you didn’t,” he shot back. “You didn’t say A-E-I-O-U.”

Just because Tad confused “vows” with “vowels” doesn’t mean that he didn’t understand what his parents were doing. The next day he plopped down between his parents, sniffed the air, and said, “Smells like safety.”

When husbands and wives are committed to marriage, their children feel safe and secure. That’s why Malachi 2:15 (NCV) says, “God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for his purpose — so they would have children who are true to God.”

Little Tad is blessed to be one of the children Malachi was talking about. Does your home smell safe to your kids?

(Copyright 2013 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.)