Nine Years

Nine years ago today I was given the prettiest, shiniest, most beautiful piece of jewelry imaginable. It was given to me by a man who blew away every stigma and impression that I ever believed to be true about the male species. It was given to me by a man who significantly raised the bar of what I wanted, desired and expected in a husband.

It was given to me on one knee, beneath the cold, starry October sky. I was still a teenager. He was in his mid-twenties. We were both still in college. We were in love. We were broke. But who needs money when you have each other? We were naive about how much hard work a good marriage entails. We were clueless about many things, actually.

However, we were completely confident that God was calling us together to be life long companions. To be best friends. To be soul mates. We took a leap of faith. I'm sure everyone around us thought we were nuts. We met in late January. We started dating in mid April. We lived in different countries for the entire summer, speaking on the phone only once. We were engaged in October and married in December.

And it has been nine incredible years! Not to say that it's been flawless, but our marriage has been far above and beyond what I ever knew a marriage could be. For some reason God has brought together an unlikely pair, and given us an incredible wealth of tools to build a great marriage. I am one amazingly blessed woman. Sometimes I'm in awe, I truly feel like God pours His blessings out on me time and time again.

I can't believe nine years have come and gone so fast. I remember our dating days like they were yesterday! I can still smell the air in the parks we walked through. I can remember the feeling walking past my on-campus mailbox hoping for something for him. I can remember scheming to try to make sure I'd be in the right places at the right times to catch some time with him, without being too obvious of course! I can remember the intense awe and wonder I had for this well respected, incredibly intelligent, extremely mature leader on campus. I still can't believe that out of all of the options he had to choose from, for some strange reason, he chose me! Or rather, God chose us! He chose for us to walk together to serve Him in the good times and the bad, in the ups and the downs, in the joyus occassions and the difficult ones. I can't think of anyone in the world I'd be more proud to be up walking through life with!