15!!!

15 years ago today I married my best friend!  He is still my best friend but my best friend and I have been through far more than we ever imagined 15 years ago!  We are better friends because of it all… 

We have proven many statistics wrong!  Not because it has been or is always easy and far from perfect but we take the bad with the good and we work through it all.  One of the best things A ever told me (with much authority) is that divorce was not an option and that we would work through every problem as if it were not an option.  When giving advice to other couples I usually share this because it really makes a difference in how you handle situations.  If there is no way out then you either work it out or live a miserable life together and no one wants that.

The world says we shouldn’t have made it to 15 but through GOD we have made it and I look forward to 15 more and 15 more and 15 more and…  We are not perfect and neither is our marriage but we do value our marriage and we do invest in it realizing it is work and we do place it above our children and all other things besides God and I am thankful that after several years of an “OK” marriage we  realized it takes all this to have a great marriage.  We want to instill this in our girls so that they can have great marriages from the beginning!

A officiated a wedding on Saturday and as I sat and listened to the ceremony and the words of God being spoken by my husband I had an incredible sense of thankfulness that he strives to be the husband HE has called him to be.  Thank you God for giving him to me and for the wonderful institution of marriage!

It was a very sweet ceremony and this was an excerpt:

Marriage is God’s truest celebration of love. In 1 Corinthians 13 we read:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

⁵ does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

⁶ does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails

Paul concludes this chapter by saying, “but now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love”. Love demands a mutual submission, as Paul says in Ephesians 5: 20-21,”always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father; be subject to one another in the fear of Christ”.

He speaks to the wives.

²² Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

²³ For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.

²⁴ But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

Then He speaks a word of encouragement and definition to the husband:

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

²⁸ So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;

²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,

³¹ FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.

³³ Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

The wife’s role is that of an attitude of reverence in her spirit, a servant’s heart, a grateful spirit, and a quiet spirit. The role of the husband is to be that of a priest to lead his family in worship, a provider to furnish for them the necessities of life and a valiant warrior to protect them from both physical and spiritual evils.

I pray that I am that wife and that I strive to be a more Biblical wife every day (The quiet spirit part takes A LOT of work for me but I have come a long way)!  The greatest thing I ever did in our marriage was to begin to RESPECT him (although at times I still fail miserably).  We need love, they need respect which is clearly stated in verse 33 above which is the basis of my favorite book on marriage titled Love and Respect.

15 years later and I love you more every day!!!

15 years and 4 daughters later and I love the way you love them!And one more because they are precious and prissy and ours 15 years later!

15 years later and this is how we spend our Saturday mornings (most of them anyway)!  And yet another one of the many reasons I love you so much 15 years later!I love that as I type this you are on a date with our firstborn because you love her that much and because you want the best for her and you invest time in teaching her God’s design for relationships AND that 15 years later you asked the other girl in this picture for a date this week too!!!

15 years later and I can’t wait to love you MORE with every passing day!