anniversary journey

28 years ago i began a journey. it actually began the day before with a wedding. my wedding. my son had turned one on the 12th and then on the 13th i married my husband. we had met 4 years earlier during a family vacation and had corresponded through letters for 4 years. i had seen him only once during that time, a few months before the wedding. we had each went on with our lives but continued to keep in touch.

i believe life for me needed to change and marrying him was the ticket. it would take me states away from what i knew and away from from my family - but boy was it worth it! i had no idea what was in store.

so, 28 years later i'm thinking this morning of the u-haul we rented and loaded (complete with diaper pail) and the journey that began.

we travelled for over 2 days, and i learned from the beginning that we had trouble conversing with each other. the first night we ended up in some out of the way place at some motel with a one year old needing to be fed. my husband had made a wrong turn. he went out and got scrambled eggs for our son to eat and brought it back to the room. me - i longed for a "holiday inn" thinking it was like the "ritz". the second night we thought we were at a holiday inn only to find we had taken the wrong driveway and ended up at some other place. whatever.... on the third day we ended up at our new home, a small apt.

life went on for a number of years getting to know each other, talk of divorce entered the conversation a number of times, once even suggested by a "minister", but, thank God it never came to be.

years later i would become a christian, born again by the grace of God and i became a new creature. we now had three children. and then depression hit with such a force that i became incapable of functioning and needed to be hospitalized, not once, but many times since. this particular journey would take detours, but would be with us for a very long time. it has only been within the last year , thank God, that a sustained healing has come, and even with healing there are occasional road blocks that seem to stop me.

now, 28 years later, i think about the journey. we've been through a lot, i frequently think my husband has been through the roughest part (being on the recipient end of my moods, etc), but know that we both have travelled. by God's grace and goodness we have perservered and are celebrating. i never thought i'd be married this long. i wasn't familiar with marriages that did not use divorce as an option. pretty much all i knew was that married people didn't really like each other. God has shown me a different way.

when my oldest son was married in 2004 they had dancing at the reception. at one point they had couples on the dance floor and and asked couples to leave the floor when their years of marriage were counted out (1, 5, etc.). i was excited when the last two couples were my husband and i and my my daughter-in-law's' parents. they beat us out :-) but what a legacy; to know both their parents had "stuck it out" so to speak.

we are unaware of what will actually lay ahead in a journey - only God knows that. i'm so thankful i'm on this one. a savior, a husband, 3 adult children, a daughter-in-law and many many things learned. i thank God for this trip.

precious minutes with God

I learned a few things the other nite, rather, it seems, God revealed some applications in my life of a few scriptures that I feel sure I've read before, but had not realized how they applied to me personally.

the first was re: John 17:23, that God loves me as he hath loved Jesus. Can you really grasp that? that he loves us, who are imperfect, sinful, selfish, etc. as much as he loves his one and only perfect Son. For some reason I don't think I ever knew that and it just totally blows me away.

another was re:Ecces. 4:9-10, that "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:..." With this God seemed to relate this for me to my marriage and children (now adults). There has been two of us in this marriage - my husband and myself and our good return is our children who are also seeking to follow God. How much harder is it for a family with a single parent? Not that it doesn't work, but how hard it must be for those parents struggling with the responsibilities of all that is required. Whether it be holding down a job, getting them to school, bandageing cuts and scrapes, chauffering them around town, and the list goes on and on.
Thank God that he supplies all the needs of his children. But surely, the pressure I would think, gets immense.

and then there was Isaiah 41:9-10 re the fact that God has not rejected me. For the majority of my life, for whatever reason (personally I believe it was the enemy sowing seeds of doubt) I had trouble with rejection. A number of people in my life recognized it before I did - at one point i was in prayer with others and the person mentioned re my [trouble?] with rejection. I'm like what is he talking about. It would be years later before I myself could see my fear. And now God has told me that He has not rejected me, and even moreso, he will strengthen me and help me and uphold me! How loving and kind he is to care and then enable.

Although I don't spend nearly enough time in His word, I am thankful for even the brief times and that He brings life changing applications even in those.