"I Do"

Nineteen and twenty-one...

We were just babies in reality. However, we thought we had it all together and knew it all too. We really only knew one thing...we HAD to be with each other 24/7 for the rest of our lives...

So, on July 13, 1991, we said "I do" to each other and promised to "hold each other from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forward until death do us part."

Did we really understand those vows?? Did I really think about where we would be 20 years from that moment and what it would take to get there??? No.

Weddings are an exciting time of planning and prepping and spending. People tell you not to concentrate on the wedding; but, instead to concentrate on the marriage. Twenty years later I can agree with that -- but as a 19-year-old -- that was VERY hard! I was more worried about whether my bridesmaids would wear their hair up or down; if we should put toile bows around the candelabras; what to pack for our honeymoon...

The wedding came and went; the honeymoon came and went; the real world began and we were married College Students, then in the working world, then parents...

If someone had told me at 7pm on July 13, 1991 that in the next twenty years we would move nine times and never live close to family; that we would live in a mouse-infested, ceiling-falling-down-house while in college; that we would have an extremely strong-willed firstborn that would test me beyond what I thought I could handle; that we would be through family illnesses and deaths and marriages and births; that I would spend the past four or five anniversaries eating hot dogs at a baseball park cheering our boys on to victory...would I have still said "I do"?

This makes me realize why God does not let us get a sneak peak at the future. At 19, if I knew I wasn't going to be able to go shopping with my mom every Saturday like we had for about 19 years, I might have thought a little harder. That would have been the wrong decision. God knew I did not need to shop every Saturday with my mom -- in fact, when we do get those several Saturdays a year to shop together, they are much more precious to me.

God is pretty smart. And there is nothing on that list that I would change now. I can look back and see how it has shaped our lives. And our life is blessed beyond measure. I am married to my best friend.

Makes me wonder what the next 20 years hold...

...I really only know one thing...I HAVE to be with Chris 24/7 for the rest of our lives!