13 Years

It's been 13 years since Jeremy and I got married...May 28, 2000. The day I looked forward to for over 365 days.

 It's been 4745 days that we've been married now...that's a lot of days. Lately, I haven't been really like the pilgrim part of these days.

 We don't know what we're doing or where we're going, but we're still committed to doing...whatever it is we're supposed to be doing...together. It's been a challenge to keep believing the best about each other, but goodness, we've really come so far in this area...I look back over the years we've been married and can see and be thankful for how much we've grown. I once heard someone say, "I've been married 12 years, 7 of them happily." Honest. Surprising. Slightly reassuring. I won't divulge what my numbers would be if I filled in the blanks on that statement...the numbers could be depressing to some and sound like I'm bragging to others. But I will say something that I read once on the front of a marriage book:

What if marriage was more about our holiness than our happiness?

 I think about the way I've been challenged, the rough edges that have been worn off, and the reflection I've seen of myself in my husband's eyes...and I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the growth that's taken place over the years.  And by the way, I'm glad Jim and Pam finally figured it out, aren't you?

Ready to leave our wedding...I dedicated the song, "Cowboy Take Me Away" to him.  How romantic in a giddy, 22-year-old kind of way (I still love that song).

Our honeymoon, where I learned that my husband is different than my family and that picking up hitch-hikers is totally okay and that there's never a time that I'm off the hook from serving Christ, others, and my husband.

Newlyweds in our new apartment where I learned to NOT make new recipes that call for  27 ingredients I don't have on hand and that I can still be a good wife even if I don't pack a sack lunch for my husband.

On our first anniversary, I had "I will go with you" engraved on the inside of Jeremy's wedding ring...they were words from a song at our wedding.  In some ways, it was an act of my will and sacrifice of my human desires to write them.  I wanted to stay, I didn't want to go...but I made a promise.

We went...to Kazakhstan.

And it was a wonderful 2 years of travel, community, purpose, friendship, and more sacrifice.

We got to see the coast of Spain...

...go Wadi-bashing in Dubai

...and snowboarding in the Italian Alps (just to name a few places we got to see)

More importantly, we learned to trust each other and depend on each other (and I learned important lessons like not to walk ahead of Jeremy when we walked down the street).

We got to be outsiders together...humbling.  We will never see the world the same because we got to experience this together.

And I learned that a wife can make a home anywhere, even if she is far from home.

We came home and learned to be parents.  I think Jeremy was naturally better at it than I.

Then we spent some really really really hard months in Phoenix.  I honestly didn't know if we would make it.  I allowed myself to harbor resentment, hold grudges, and not be trusting.  My baby son was my best friend.  This was literally the only picture I could find of Jeremy and I together the whole time we lived in Phoenix.  It was hard.

But God, in his mercy, provided a way out...slowly.  We moved to Tucson and tenderly put the pieces back together again.  We were hopeful once more (most days).

Refreshed and renewed, we had the amazing opportunity to go to Flagstaff and serve at our old church.  A month or so after we moved there, I got to sit in the cry room at church and eavesdrop as Jeremy told the college group about God's timing and his struggles over the past year.  I learned a lot...about my husband and his heart and his relationship with God.  I should have trusted him more.  And Him.

Life in Flagstaff was wonderful, but real, with all its ups and downs.  Here is some of that real...the birth of our second son.  I promise we were truly happy but this is just real life...I think we were both thinking about the fact that we now had 2 kids to take care of and that we had in-laws and parents to coordinate and that the epidural that I caved in and got was going to cost $900.

Over the course of our years in Arizona, Jeremy earned his Master's of Divinity and I learned to be okay in a supportive role and to sacrifice for my husband's passions and dreams.  I learned what an intelligent and diligent man he really is.  I had been suspicious before, but it was confirmed.

Here I am being the wind beneath his wings.  But that's a really cheesy song.

We had some good times enjoying each other's company and I learned to relax and be in the moment more and to put effort into my appearance for my husband's sake.

Despite adding a 3rd child to the mix, we still found ways to pursue things we enjoyed together (with the help of grandparents who were willing to babysit, of course).

For our 10-year-anniversary, we got to go to Europe together.  It was wonderful and hard work...I guess it was kind of representative of our marriage!  It keeps getting better in my mind as I remember it.  We did that together!

I also learned that doing things side-by-side with my husband--like taking exhausting trips to Mexico with the youth group--were priceless.  We grew so close, even though we hardly had 2 minutes alone with each other.  Jeremy was in his best form on those trips.  I was so proud of him.  Watching your spouse do things that make you proud is really important for them and for you.  Wives, go do it!

Now we live with my parents and Jeremy puts up with me singing silly songs with my mom and  never putting the laundry away and wearing pink bows in my hair (it was Annie's birthday party)...well okay, he told me to take it out immediately but the other two are still true.  We are being tested and tried in new ways, but we are sticking together and reaping the wisdom we have learned in other trying times.  And he's aging pretty well, which helps.

So, I shudder to think of who I would be without the refinement of my marriage to Jeremy.  And the results have been deep and full of love and joy.  Love is patient, love is kind, love is not self-seeking, love does not hold a record of wrongs; love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  The year we got married, both sets of our parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversaries.  This year marks 43 years for each of them...we are thankful for that example to follow

.

This morning, I had the words to a Sara Groves song pop into my head.  People if you aren't getting the picture that there is a Sara Groves song for every situation, you need to get with it.  Part of it goes like this:

better than our promises
is the day we got to keep them
I wish those two could see us now
they never would believe how
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy

Happy 13 years, Jeremy!