Fourteen Years Ago

Some of you might remember this day fourteen years ago but most of you don't.  I don't blame you really, I mean how many of your friends' wedding anniversaries can you remember right off the top of your head?  If I had said, "What happened on June 26th?" you might have heard a bell in your brain but, honestly, I can think of like 3 wedding anniversaries other than my own and that is only because I was in the wedding or directly involved somehow.  Of course, now there is Facebook to remind you or, in my case, Windows that announces the days' events every morning, "David & Jessica's Anniversary, all day".  My kids get a kick out of that.  
But, fourteen years ago, on June 26th, I married my guy.  All this week, and all last week, and really for awhile now, I've been racking my brain for an anniversary gift.  Fourteen years isn't like 15 or 20 or even 10; it's just fourteen.  Or, is it?  I could gift him with dahlias (the flower for 14) or ivory (the official gift of 14), but neither of those things would appeal to him much, unless someone like Chip Ingram or Tom O'Brien handed it to him and then sat down and answered all his questions about life and football.  So, that's probably not going to happen.  As I was explaining my dilemma to my husband, because he is, in fact, my best friend and who better to explain my dilemma to than my BFF, he reminded me that a decade ago I let him off the hook by telling him that anniversary presents didn't have to be earth-shattering, life-changing gifts! He said, that I said, that it was perfectly okay to present one another with a gift that remembered the day and the importance of our anniversary but we didn't have to feel the earth move under our feet (thank you, Carole King).  And that, my friends, made my world brighter!  I didn't feel the pressure to find the. perfect. gift. to commemorate our fourteenth wedding anniversary.  So, I got him something that would make the earth move under his feet a little more comfortably (work shoes).  
Instead, I put my few brain cells that function properly to work and determined that since my last blog post was about the human man I most memorialize, I shall blog about the human man I most honor and respect.  I say human man because, always, always, God comes first.

We were just babies when God divinely appointed our meeting (I say babies, but if you are over 30, you know what I mean).  We'd both prayed for a person to come along that would build us up and not tear us down.  Neither of us were really living the way we should have been.  We were mired in sin, but separately, and God chose to bring us to the same place at the same time to meet.  I remember knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was different and he would be mine.  Ours was not a perfect fairy tale; there were bumps in the road (and once when I actually ran off the road) and there were mistakes made and prayers sent up and God again answered our prayers.  He chose to put us back on the right track, together, and on June 26th, fourteen years ago, we pledged that we would remain on the right track, together until death parted us.  I still get flutters in my stomach thinking about it.  Not about the wedding, for indeed, it was every bride's dream.  No, my flutters come when I think that I get to stand beside this man for the remainder of my days and that God loved us enough to allow it to happen!  My flutters come when I get the opportunity to hear him teach or when I see him treating our daughters tenderly as their beloved Daddy.  I still get flutters!  
I could write for hours about how great my husband is, but that doesn't do anyone any good, other than maybe puff up David's ego a bit, but it would be an ungodly puff.  No, all the honor goes to God.  He has molded and smoothed, changed and rearranged David & I and our marriage together and made it something I cherish and adore.  God has taught us the hierarchy that He designed -- first God, then husband & wife, then children and the rest.  God has also taught me how beautiful God-ordained submission can be.  Oh, how we've changed since those first days of arguing over who got up with the baby last or my talking over every man in the room, including my husband, to tell my opinion.  Thank God those days are gone and we are still here, still in love, still learning and changing.  I cannot emphasize how important God's part in our lives has played.  I am putting myself out there by blogging this way, sharing what my heart says rather than what people want to read.  I am opening myself up to criticism -- that we think we are better than we are and all those other ugly things that people think when pride gets in the way.  I hope that can you read my humility.  We were nothing and God made us something -- together. 
I've had a few well-meaning people pull me aside and tell me I have no idea how good I have it.  They tell me I have no idea how blessed I am.  Maybe people do the same thing to David, I don't know.  But let me tell you something -- this marriage thing isn't easy!  I know how good I have it because David & I worked for every drop of goodness we squeeze out of our lives.  God blesses us with good things and good relationships but He also requires that we maintain those relationships and that we follow the commandments set forth in The Bible.  It means we listen to one another.  It means I respect and he loves (Ephesians 5).  It means that through this last 18 months that have honestly been the worst in my life, David has been there ever step of the way because I am not dead yet and it will only be death that parts us.  
I am so glad God married David & I.  I love him.  He loves me. 

 Ultimately?

  "I have found the one my soul loves."( Song of Solomon 3:4)

 and that has made all the difference.  

                                                     Happy Anniversary to my beloved!