Concluding our Story...

Concluding our story……

So now we are about 11 years into our marriage and I was thoroughly enjoying my time as a stay-at-home mom. But when Callie was two and Ben entered school at WCA, I began work at our church preschool to help out with expenses. What a blessing that was! I fell in love with all those sweet students and my coworkers. Callie was in preschool with me and Ben was in 1^st grade. It really seemed as though things were finally falling into place. But as a couple of years went by, Matt’s company was struggling to keep the doors open and we knew he needed to find work. We put our house up for sale, Matt began searching, and within 3 weeks our house sold and Matt began a new job. Wow! Things don’t usually work that quickly for us! Lol! Matt’s new job would take him to Lakeland, FL, for about a year and then from there we didn’t know where it would lead. There again, we found ourselves at a crossroads of what God would have us to do. We made plans to stay put here in Wilmington and see Matt on the weekends but after flying down there to help him find an apartment, God made it clear to us that we should not live apart for a year. So, when God speaks, we listen and obey! I loaded up Ben and Callie and headed to Lakeland, FL, into a 650 square foot, one-bedroom apartment and began homeschooling. Wow! That was an intense but beautiful time for us as a family. Ben and Callie shared the one bedroom and Matt and I would blow up an air mattress every night, roll the couch out of the way, and sleep on the living room floor. It wasn’t exactly glamorous, but it was home because we were all under one roof. Just as God intended! One of the perks of living in Lakeland, FL, was season tickets to Disney World and we got to visit quite often. We are BIG Disney fans!!

So, there we were in a one-bedroom apartment enjoying life as a family of four and then God began to move…..again….

It was during that time that God began working on our hearts about adoption. Nothing about that made sense at the time. It was expensive, we were comfortable with our two children, and we didn’t even know where we would end up after Florida.

Well, there again, when God calls you to something, He will see you through it. God had already begun putting the details together and this was a true test of our faith and trust in him.  Matt’s job moved us back to Wilmington in December of 2005 and the adoption process began. I was able to go back to work at the preschool and we were enjoying the total dependence on God through it all. God put a love in our hearts for a child we didn’t even know yet and it was clear we had to move forward to bring our child home. We took a huge leap of faith in obedience to God and He put all the details in place!

(I will not go into all the details of our adoption here, but stay tuned in May for our adoption journey!)

All the way around the world in a town called Guangzhou, China, we welcomed our precious Caleb into our hearts on May 9, 2007! It was absolutely beautiful and God continues to amaze us with his love and grace today through that experience! Now we are a family of five!

These last few years of our marriage, God seen us through some other challenges. But each and every hardship that has come up in our marriage, God has been faithful. Did you get that? GOD HAS BEEN FAITHFUL! There are tough times and challenges looming even now, but the blessing is that God is there every step of the way and continues to make something beautiful out of each trial!

What we have discovered is that God desires us to be holy more than happy. When we seek holiness from his perfect will, there is a joy unspeakable. Times can be difficult but peace and joy from our God can remain.

When you are down on your face and have nowhere else to look but up, you see his grace and mercy in ways that bring peace and healing. I can look back over our 23 years of marriage and, yes, I see those difficult times, but more than that now, I see the beauty that God brings from it. I see how much more Matt and I have fallen in love. I see the deep faith it has instilled in our marriage and family. I see the incredible strength God gave us and continues to give us. I see how our faith impacts our children and as they grow our desire is that they follow Jesus and live for HIM only. Most importantly, I see the love of a Father on his precious children and how that deep love changed our lives!

I have fallen in love with my husband deeper than I ever thought possible over these last 23 years. When I said, “I do”, I never thought I could love him more than at that moment but God has shown me differently. The love grew and took shape into something deeper, more meaningful, just like the love for my God. The more I know my God…truly know him, the deeper my love for him goes.

I cannot begin to explain how much I love my Jesus! When I hear his name, my heart is full! I long to spend time immersed in his Word and at his feet in prayer. He is my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, and I am so in love with him!

Throughout this week, I have shared a brief part of our married life together. This may have been more information than you cared to have heard, but there is so much more than can’t fit onto these pages. Most of these treasured moments are written on the delicate places of my heart and will remain. Our lives are rich and full of love. Our marriage is not perfect but it is OURS! We work hard at it. We show each other grace and forgiveness and we know that through every day as our relationship with God grows, so will our relationship with each other. It’s all about HIM!

That is the secret to a great marriage….God! If you do marriage any other way you will miss out on all the benefits that God makes available to you. God designed marriage and we will continue to give HIM his rightful place in ours. I pray you will do the same in yours.

Thanks for taking the journey with me! I wish I could have sat across the table from you at the coffee house and shared this story because there is just so much that God has done in my life through this blessing of marriage. But I am grateful you joined me here.

Tomorrow I will share some pictures of our years together and then on Sunday we will celebrate our 23 years! Hallelujah! Thanks for sharing my memories and allowing me to take up some of your day as I rambled on about my marriage. Lol! I pray, in some way, that you have been blessed! I know I have!

God is so faithful and he continues to amaze me every day! To HIM be ALL glory!

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NIV)