On Sunday we celebrated six years of marriage! SIX. In so many respects it seems like it was just yesterday that we were walking down the aisle after we said our vows. Yet it so many others, it seems like forever ago. I love that our anniversary is in January and that each fresh start to the new year is followed by a fresh new year of our marriage.
A few years ago, I shared a things things that aren’t really your typical marriage advice, and those tips certainly ring true today. In year 6 we endured so much. Sickness, surgery, hospital stays, pregnancy, birth, becoming parents, starting school, turing 30, losing friends, and embracing community. Add to that every day life and needless to say we were busy! This past year, the idea that our life flows in seasons was more evident than ever as each of these things seemed almost clearly defined by dates on a calendar.
In the past six years, we have journeyed through many different seasons together. I would be lying if I told you it has been easy. But it has certainly been amazing. Because, you see, life isn’t easy. That’s not the reality of this world. There are challenges and trials and headaches. There are tears, and sleeplessness, and sickness. But in those moments, in the every day moments outside of the “perfect day”, the goodness of His grace resides. It is in the mundane, the ordinary, the difficult, and the exhausting that true intimacy lies. It’s easy to love someone when you there’s a lovely celebration of the best of who you are. What’s not so easy is to love someone through the challenges this life presents.
So as we start 2017, and year seven of this journey together, I am beyond thankful for beauty in the messy reality that is both life and marriage. I am humbled to do life alongside a man who so selflessly gives his whole heart to his girls. He is our protector, supporter, personal chef, joke making, ridiculous singing machine and the must ruggedly handsome man I know. And I will forever be the lucky one to call myself his wife.
