is the love of my life and my best friend. we are celebrating 18 years of marriage together. My last entry was about time and wow, time just flies. This entry is a testimony of God's goodness in our lives.
eighteen years ago two young kids got married - literally I was 19 and Kevin was 20. I look at 19 and 20 year olds now and realize we really were just kids.
not having a clue about life just knowing we were in love and wanted to spend our lives together. we came quickly to realize that fairytales are not real life and between then and now we have hit mountian tops and valleys. True love is about give and take and about laying down our own needs to meet the needs of the other. While we dont have a perfect marriage - we have learned a lot in the past 18 years, we have a blessed marriage because we are finding that perfect love is from God and when we seek after Him together and keep him center, then we have His great love to give to each other.
we talk about our dating days (yes we were high school sweetheart and we tell our kids they cant date until college) we used to dream and plan what we wanted our lives to look like - four kids, home on land with a pole barn, Kevin wanted his own building business, I wanted to stay home with the kids, we wanted to pole barn to be filled with four wheelers and a fishing boat, and seriously we dreamed about having two dogs, one old english sheep dog (named prisilla) and a golden retriever (named cody). A life of comfort and pleasure and yes for the blessing of God on it all.
Any one that knows us, knows that God gave us everything that we desired - we are living this dream down to the two dogs - except the names are webster and cooper.
Two years ago, we felt a strong push from God to put our home up for sale, that call revealed a lot about us and how much worth we put into our home and what we had and about how we loved our comfort . It was one of the hardest things to surrender, it took us a year to actually surrender. I remeber the night we put the sign in the front yard, our family prayed that God would send a buyer and prayed for direction. Kevin and I walked down pounded the sign in by the street and then walked to the pole barn and looked at all the abundance that God had given us and we were totally humbled and overwhelmed at the realization that God had given us everthing that our hearts had desired.
The last ten years have been full of rich memories with raising our family, living next to my brother and sister in law and their three boys and doing life with them and all of us growing together. God has also brought along other amazing people and we have learned so much about God and his heart and Jesus and his blood sacrifice, and the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, and He is exchanging our heart of stone into hearts of flesh. He is showing us from the depths that we have been rescued.
He has humbled us by trials we have faced, He has humbled us through our kids, watching them grow and becoming more independent. we are finding and expereincing that truly there is nothing that last forever, season change, people come and go, making money one day and losing money the next, having your health and losing your health, the realization that each day we have with our loved ones here on earth is a gift, that there are no guarentees - our family has walked alongside close friends that lost their 15 year daughter in a car accident 1 1/2 yrs ago. The pain that everyone carries - it is raw and real. It just magnifies the truth that JESUS is our only HOPE and JESUS is our only ROCK.
God is teaching Kevin and I that real living is being real about our own pain and joy, and entering into the pain and joy of others. It is about rejoicing with those rejoicing and weeping with those that weep. Real living is comuning with the God of the Universe, its saying "Here I am - Send me" its about steeping out of the boat, and finding yourself walking on the water - and looking up and seeing its Jesus's hand holding you up.
These past eighteen years have been full of God's outpouring blessing, I know in the past we had taken all that we have for granted... And now we say
who am i , O LORD God, and what is my family that you have brought us this far.
eighteen years ago two young kids got married - literally I was 19 and Kevin was 20. I look at 19 and 20 year olds now and realize we really were just kids.
not having a clue about life just knowing we were in love and wanted to spend our lives together. we came quickly to realize that fairytales are not real life and between then and now we have hit mountian tops and valleys. True love is about give and take and about laying down our own needs to meet the needs of the other. While we dont have a perfect marriage - we have learned a lot in the past 18 years, we have a blessed marriage because we are finding that perfect love is from God and when we seek after Him together and keep him center, then we have His great love to give to each other.
we talk about our dating days (yes we were high school sweetheart and we tell our kids they cant date until college) we used to dream and plan what we wanted our lives to look like - four kids, home on land with a pole barn, Kevin wanted his own building business, I wanted to stay home with the kids, we wanted to pole barn to be filled with four wheelers and a fishing boat, and seriously we dreamed about having two dogs, one old english sheep dog (named prisilla) and a golden retriever (named cody). A life of comfort and pleasure and yes for the blessing of God on it all.
Any one that knows us, knows that God gave us everything that we desired - we are living this dream down to the two dogs - except the names are webster and cooper.
Two years ago, we felt a strong push from God to put our home up for sale, that call revealed a lot about us and how much worth we put into our home and what we had and about how we loved our comfort . It was one of the hardest things to surrender, it took us a year to actually surrender. I remeber the night we put the sign in the front yard, our family prayed that God would send a buyer and prayed for direction. Kevin and I walked down pounded the sign in by the street and then walked to the pole barn and looked at all the abundance that God had given us and we were totally humbled and overwhelmed at the realization that God had given us everthing that our hearts had desired.
The last ten years have been full of rich memories with raising our family, living next to my brother and sister in law and their three boys and doing life with them and all of us growing together. God has also brought along other amazing people and we have learned so much about God and his heart and Jesus and his blood sacrifice, and the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, and He is exchanging our heart of stone into hearts of flesh. He is showing us from the depths that we have been rescued.
He has humbled us by trials we have faced, He has humbled us through our kids, watching them grow and becoming more independent. we are finding and expereincing that truly there is nothing that last forever, season change, people come and go, making money one day and losing money the next, having your health and losing your health, the realization that each day we have with our loved ones here on earth is a gift, that there are no guarentees - our family has walked alongside close friends that lost their 15 year daughter in a car accident 1 1/2 yrs ago. The pain that everyone carries - it is raw and real. It just magnifies the truth that JESUS is our only HOPE and JESUS is our only ROCK.
God is teaching Kevin and I that real living is being real about our own pain and joy, and entering into the pain and joy of others. It is about rejoicing with those rejoicing and weeping with those that weep. Real living is comuning with the God of the Universe, its saying "Here I am - Send me" its about steeping out of the boat, and finding yourself walking on the water - and looking up and seeing its Jesus's hand holding you up.
These past eighteen years have been full of God's outpouring blessing, I know in the past we had taken all that we have for granted... And now we say
who am i , O LORD God, and what is my family that you have brought us this far.
And so looking to the next 18 years + our dreams are different - we are more concerned about blessing God than about God blessing us. we want to build on the last eighteen years and have more faith and proclaim that our God is faithful and good - and even though our dreams were our own dreams - God has used us inspite of us and met us and continues to meet us right where we are at. - now that is amazing.
I am so thankful for my man - the man that God put in my life to journey with. The most amazing thing is that we are growing together in Christ, Kevin is growing each day in the love and knowledge of Jesus, he is humble, hardworking, so hardworking, he provides and protects us, he loves me and reminds me everyday of that, he loves being a dad and is so good at it and he is courageous and he is willing to surrender all our plans and dreams for God's plans. He has an adventerous spirit and he is a "get r done" guy, he will do anything for anyone. I tell everyone that while young love is good - old love is even better.
we are still living at our home, God didnt sell it (not yet) but we are learning that part of this journey is holding on to things loosely and holding on to Jesus with all our might. There is so much freedom in that. whether it be our home, our job, our church, our plans and dreams, our friends, even our children and each other, if we can walk in total surrender each day (and we are just in the learning stages of this) - then we can freely love each other and the world around us.
Jesus, shine through us as individuals, as a married couple, and as a family. Be glorified. We bless you Father. Thank you for lavishing us with your love, for calling us yours. Thank you for a blessed marraige and for the past 18 years. All that we have and all that we are - Jesus - we surrender.
I will end with my favorite verse - that has held true for us -
Delight in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:4
