20 Years

Yesterday was our 20th anniversary.  We don't have much money, we wanted to do something special, like go on a trip or cruise.  The 20th year is china, like 25 is silver and 50 is gold.  Since we couldn't afford a trip to China, we settled on Chinese food and a movie from Redbox.  It was fun.  :)

On our wedding day we had saved the top of our cake and froze it like everyone told us to do. So on our first anniversary we thawed out are beautiful cake with butter cream frosting and raspberry filling and went to feed each other just like we did on our wedding day.  It was nasty!!  It was dried out and tasted like we were munching on a mixture of bark and sawdust.  I was so disappointed.

Our first kiss.  Well, as husband and wife.

To be honest, that's all I remember of our anniversary.  I remember our wedding.  Our crappy honeymoon...or rather, non-honeymoon.  I remember him giving me a card on our first MONTH anniversary, but the year anniversaries kind of blend together.  However, the marriage doesn't.

I remember when Rich and I was first married and he was training in Madison.  He was usually home at a certain time.  That time came and went.  Then another hour.  And another.  We didn't have cell phones back then, so I called the training center.  They tracked him down.  He was so irritated on the phone (first irritation).  He said he'd be home soon.  When he got home he questioned me about why I called and I told him I was worried.

He said, "you know I would be home eventually."

I said, "well, I know, but I was worried.  You could have been in an accident! (first quiver of voice and spring of tears)  You could have been killed!  You could... "

"Geez Beck, you have such a wild imagination." *gasp* (first fight)

He brings me into a hug.  "I'm all right.  But I'll never hear the end of this from the guys."*sigh* (first make up)

I remember telling Rich when I was pregnant with Micayla, when I was pregnant with Dale and Abrieanna... and when I was pregnant with the two other babies...and telling him when those babies went to heaven.

I remember giving birth to Micayla...30 hours.  Then after the exhaustion of having her, Rich holding this tiny little bundle on his shoulder, rocking her, loving her... He never looked so good to me.  I had her at 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday.  At 6:45, he leans in to me to give me a kiss and says, "ok I'm going to go." (Insert surprise) "I'm going to make sure I can catch the show" (he was show director for the Rock Aqua Jays water ski show). (Insert surprise mixed with icy look with daggers).  So I sat with my little precious, sobbing hormonal tears til he came back and asked me what was wrong.  (not the first of many eye rolls)

I remember the first time he was injured at work and had to have major surgery on his back.  I stood as a young bride listening to what the doctor was telling me with his parents at my side.  I couldn't stop crying and barely comprehended what he was saying.  When I was growing up, when someone in my family checked into a hospital, they never came out.  Or if they did, they came home to die.  All I heard was Rich needed emergency surgery... that translated...Rich is going to die.  Therefore, my marriage was over.  The love of my life is leaving me.  What am I going to do?  I remember the doctor talking to me then kind of sighing, then turning to his parents to tell them the rest.  haha I imagine him rolling his eyes inside and thinking, "Sheesh!  Pull it together lady!  It's just back surgery!  He's going to be fine!"

And he was.  He came out of the surgery well, but he has lived with chronic back pain most of our marriage.

We've had a lot of great times, we've had a lot of low times.  There have been times where we've looked at each other and thought, "I have never loved you more."  And there have been times where we've looked at each other and thought, prison doesn't seem so bad.

Most of our marriage we have been in chronic pain, Rich with his back for 18 years, me with chronic headaches and migraines for 15.  But you deal.  Other people have it much worse than we do.  We've been blessed.

There have been times when we have had it pretty good financially where my dream of being able to help others came true.  We were able to pay someones bills or buy them food.  And there have been times where we didn't know where our next meal was going to come from...how we were going to pay the kids' school fees.  But God always came through for us.  He was always faithful to provide.

God has been the glue that has held our craziness together.  If it wasn't for Him, I would have fallen apart when Rich went through his back and shoulder surgeries or miscarriages, death of parents and family members, or a hundred other scary moments in our lives. If it wasn't for Him, we wouldn't have gotten through our financial problems.  If it wasn't for Him we wouldn't recognize that it was Him who provided the joy and the goodness in our life.  If it wasn't for Him, I wouldn't be so very grateful for my family.

I've been to a lot of wedding over the years.  I really listen to the wedding vows.
"for better, for worse
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness, and in health,
to love, honor and cherish
'til death do us part..."

It seems to me that sometimes those vows are taken lightly.  We tend to remember the "better" the "richer" the "health" but forget the other stuff.  Marriage is hard.  It's hard no matter who you're with.  The grass isn't greener on the other side, you just have different landscaping problems.

Now, I'm not naive enough to understand that there are times where divorce is necessary.  There are times when a man or woman truly needs to get out of an unhealthy relationship.

On my wedding day, my dad came up to me and said, "now remember, divorce is no longer in your vocabulary.  God has blessed this marriage."  True.  Although as Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's wife) said, "Divorce? no.  Murder? yes."  =)

I love my husband with all my heart.  Here's to 20 more.

Valentine's Day Expectations

Dating: A dozen roses and a shy card.

Engaged: A box of chocolates and a long love letter spewing sentiments of a long life together.

First year of marriage: A flower from a gas station and a card that had grandma scratched off and a sheepish grin that said, it’s the thought that counts, right?  

Five years later: It’s Valentines Day?

Nineteen years in: It’s a made up holiday anyway.

Expectations.  We can build something up so much in our mind that our loved one can not possibly achieve it.  We look for expressions of love that, even when our husbands or boyfriends try, they fall short.

There was a study of what makes married woman happy.  It found that the biggest factor was their husband’s emotional engagement.  When he is affectionate, empathetic, “tuned into his wife”, that was the most important factor in predicting his wife’s happiness.

But the study also found "if the wife had to choose between having a husband who is taking half the housework and having a husband who is really making a conscious, deliberate effort to focus emotionally on his wife, the emotional focus is much more likely to be a paramount concern."  

Interesting.  The crazy thing...the poor men in our life can’t win.  Our tastes change.  Our level of happiness changes.  Our needs change.

I’m reading a book right now and one of the main characters is a tired mom.  She says that five years ago she would have given anything for a dozen roses brought home by her husband.  But now, if he offered her the chance to take a ten minute nap she would fall to the ground in delight.  I think many of us can relate.

Men tend to be more action-orientated in their love giving.  Help with chores, repair the garage door, or bring home a paycheck.  However, that doesn’t show the affection we may desperately long for on Valentines Day, or any day.

But men aren’t mind readers, nor are they experts in romance.

So take them off the hook.  What if this year you focused not on your expectations or disappointments but on the One who wants to romance you.  He’s been trying to show you each and every day how cherished you are in His sight.  What if this you you looked to the Lord to meet your expectations first and the let the man in your life to do what he can.  

Remember what His word says says about you today and every day:

•  He calls you unforgettable: "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Isaiah 49:15).

• He says He has always loved you and always will: "...I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness" (Jeremiah 31:3).

• He calls Himself your Husband: "For your Maker is your husband - the Lord Almighty is his name - the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit..."  (Isaiah 54:5-6a).

• He says His love for you is greater than anything you'll ever find on this earth:"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). And then Jesus did just that -- He laid down His life for you...one He calls "friend."  

• He promises He'll never leave you: "...Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5b).  

• He assures you in His Word that He has chosen you as His own: "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight..." (Ephesians 1:4).

• He assures you in His Word that nothing will be able to separate you from His ever-pursuing love: "... neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39).

This is your love letter this Valentine’s Day.  And if you’re husband or boyfriend makes an attempr that isn’t quite up to your expectations, thank God for him!  

P.S.  Rich and I are watching tv, eating lunch at home, running errands, picking up kids from school, going to Dale’s basket ball game, eating at home... enjoying our family.  After all, it’s a made up holiday.  =D  I love him.