How It All Began...

I remember what I was doing 25 years ago today on Wednesday January 7, 1987 .  I had written in my journal a few days previous that I had a feeling something momentous was going to happen very soon but it still surprised me how wonderful it was when it finally did.  I went to work that day as a classroom assistant in a high school for mentally handicapped teenagers.  I had been invited by my co-worker - who was quickly becoming a good friend - to come over for dinner that night.  We were working on a project that needed a graphic designer and she had just the person for the job - he was coming for dinner that night too.

She knew.  I didn't know.  She planned this.  I was oblivious.

I was standing in the kitchen looking out the window while dinner was cooking and I saw him and that's when I KNEW.  I hadn't spoken a word to him yet but I just knew.  This was THE ONE.  We had dinner - I couldn't tell you what we ate - my friend's kids told me later that we hardly spoke to them we were so busy getting to know each other.

The next day I told my friend - YUP - He's THE ONE - I'm gonna marry him.  So I did.  We did - got married that is - 345 days later...and we lived happily ever after.  The end.

Well - not the end really - just the end of life as we knew it and the beginning of a life full of ups and downs and wonderful things and not-so-wonderful things.  We were laughing the other day when we contemplated what we would have done if we'd KNOWN what life was going to be like for us 25 years later.   We were so in love I know nothing would have stopped us but it may have given a few moments pause.

 

Life is so wonderfully-good when you realise that you walked through some very dark and rough places with someone who never gave up on you.  We were there for each other through the death of a parent and sickness and life changing disease and kids and teenagers and homeschooling and adding new daughters and a son-in-law to our family and moving to the farm.

We moved here a week after my birthday - I always say "I got a farm for my birthday present" and he says - "that should do for the rest of your life!"  He's kidding of course but it sure topped the toaster-for-a-birthday-present-fiasco a few years back!  I guess I can't really bring that one up anymore - I've been paid back in shovel fulls - (you can use your imagination as to what's on the shovel!)

Ephesians 3: 19-21(The Message) says:

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.  God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

That was our wedding text.  He has done far more than I could ever have asked or imagined - and I always tell Him I have a really good imagination. 

Thank you Lord for choosing my wonderful husband who is all I ever dreamt of and more and for giving us a life with each other that we don't deserve.  Thank you for the children you chose especially for us and for 25 amazing years of walking with You on a journey that not in my wildest imagination could have EVER been this good.