Twenty-five years ago this May, I married my best friend, the love of my life, my soul mate....and every other name that is supposed to go with the person you want to spend the rest of your life. And today, I still feel the same way about him given that I was 17 years old when I met him and 19 when I married him.
It absolutely amazes me that it has been 25 years since we looked at each other and pledged our vows and made our covenant before God to love one another for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, to death do us part.
We were SO young when we got married...I was 2 months shy of 20, and he was 3 months shy of 21...and honestly, we said those vows with our whole hearts and with as much as we knew about life at the time. We were SO young and so innocent.
It amazes me that those vows the proverbial marriage nail right on top of the head. While some marriages may make through many, many years without having one or more of these tested, I daresay that most of us have many of them tested. I cannot speak to what makes one marriage stay together and another one call it quits and I will never, ever judge another couples lives....all I know is what we have gone through. And no matter where you are...early in your first marriage, deep in a second marriage or even in a third, God intends and wants to bless it and desires that we love one another with HIS love...His unconditional agape love to the best of our ability.
I honestly have no real true idea as to why my hubby and I are still together today except for sheer determination, relying on God, the absolute commitment of my husband to the vows he made, and the same for me. And the only other thing I can say is that I feel I got lucky and found my soul mate at 17....which doesn't always happen.
I want to encourage by example... so here is our story.... The first 4 years were just awesome! We fought little, played a lot, moved into a little 900 sq ft. home and always seemed to have just what we needed! I worked part-time, he worked full-time and we played with friends and just enjoyed early married life. The only snag was when we decided to get pregnant, it took longer than we expected, but eventually, I became pregnant with our first child, a boy.... I was deliriously happy! My dreams were all coming true, finally; the man of my dreams, I was going to become a Mom, God was indeed good. Then, on Easter morning 21 years ago, at 20 weeks gestation, my water broke, so we rushed to the hospital and due to my white count sky-rocketing and my increasing fever, there was nothing we could do to save our little Joshua, who did not live through labor anyway. We had very early experienced one of our for absolute worst. It challenged us as a young married couple, because we grieved very differently, so it was either learn about how the other one grieved and give them that space, or it would have torn us apart. Instead, we chose to let it draw us closer. I do not know how I would have made it without my God and my husband. Today, I thank God for the experience, which may seem odd...but because of it, a passion was lit inside of me to understand the Lord my God better....to understand how such a good God would let such an awful thing happen. I am still on that journey on a daily basis. Digging into the Word would be necessary for the 4 difficult pregnancies that were to follow....BUT out of them, God blessed us with our three beautiful children we have today. There were times when the oldest was in the NICU, and when I was on bedrest with my daughter and my youngest that I relied so heavily on the Word and the Lord to make it through the fears of losing another... but He did so... Amazingly, Greg and I grew as well during that time.
He helped us through a move to Houston that was lonely and then He saw fit to bring us back. Little did we know that some of our hardest years were just over the horizon. A few years after my youngest was born, about 12 years ago, financial strain was already beginning to hit due to all the premature babies, the hospital stays and we constantly had medical bills that put a strain on our finances. About this time, I all of the sudden began to have daily migraines which required many trips to doctors to get help get the pain to stop as we could not figure out what was happening, next came the panic attacks along with severe depression and I also started getting sick a lot. Additionally, I was having a lot of pain in various parts of my body that just did not makes sense. None of it made sense. Here we are in the throes of "in sickness and in health". By this time it was putting a strain on our marriage... Greg was beginning to have to take up the slack for me and I had been on the team at my church called Keepers of the Home, which was where my heart completely lay, yet my body was cheating me...the fatigue, the migraines, the depression/anxiety, and now the guilt that my poor husband was having to start helping with the children and laundry. Yet, he never complained...
I did try to continue to work at various jobs during this time until Thanksgiving week 2003. I became very, very ill with three different illnesses. I do not remember 4 days of that week. I pneumonia along with two other illnesses that were serious. The doctor told me I would be acutely ill for at least 3 weeks and chronically ill for 6 weeks after that. Little did we know that my life actually would never be the same. However, it would take until 2006 to get a proper diagnosis and in the meantime, my husband felt like I had abandoned him and was just giving in feeling bad. I could not understand just how bad I felt and that I felt in my gut something was truly wrong. It took my dentist to find out, but praise God for her!
In the midst of my illnesses, Greg became ill with Crohn's disease and had 3 hospital stays and a major surgery. Through all of mine, his medical issues and all, we were now definitely experiencing for richer for poorer. End of Part I....
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