8 years!!!!!

I am so delighted that God has blessed me with 8 years of marriage with Adam.  It was something that we both wanted but we had to wait till God said that it was the right time, we met in college in August of 1998.  On Feb 21, 2004, I walked down the aisle of Tara Baptist Church (our HOME church) to pledge our love to each other in times of good and bad.  We are still at Tara Baptist worshiping together and serving God together.  What an honor to serve together?

In today’s age, getting married isn’t a huge deal; people get married and divorced before they even get the photos back from the wedding.  It is something that Adam and I felt differently about.  God tells us that we are to be married as one, that I am (as a wife) to be submissive and to honor my husband, that Adam (as a husband) is to love me like the God loves the church.  That we are to support, honor, be loyal to, build up and to stand by each other no matter what is thrown our way or no matter what is going on.  Before we got married we went through premarital counseling and we learned a few things that we have put into our memory banks. 

1. Never speak badly of your spouse; you are the only one that others see of them.  In this case, I know that at work, they don’t see Adam or know him, the only way they get to know him is how I talk about him and what I do for him.  This isn’t hard for me; I do love him and adore him dearly.  I don’t have something bad to say at all.  However, we all know many that talk poorly of their spouse, talk down to them, make fun of them, fuss about them, or even belittle everything that their spouse does.  So the only way you know their spouse is by all the negative things that they have said.

2. Never talk in public about anything that you wouldn’t stand and scream in the middle of a crowded family restaurant.  When we got this lesson I have to admit that it was Adam, the Pastor and I sitting in the middle of a subway, this was a lesson about talking about our sexual relations, that it says at home between the two of us.  Adam and I consider it to be no one’s business anyway but it just reinforced the thought.  However, I can’t tell you how many times I have been in the presences of conversation that have to do with sex, money or something else that is really NO ONES business.  Think about if a young child needs to know and be privy to the information that you are talking about.  If you want the whole world to know what you are saying, private things should stay private.

3.  For better… This is a word that takes very little to define.  BETTER, good, wonderful, loving, happy… it is something that is honoring. To look at all of the things that you are enjoying together as a couple and to feel blessed about it all.  For Adam and me it was trips, dinners, late night conversations and things like that.  I have to say that everyone is close during the good times.  During 8 years we have plenty of awesome, wonderful, amazing memories.  We have been blessed with a family, church family and all the things that we needed.

4.  For worse… This is part that today many don’t like or listen too, it is the reason why people don’t stay together or why friendships end.  People aren’t willing to walk with and support you when there is a bad time.  When you are going through the worse, when there is something that they don’t get or don’t like they walk away instead of loving, supporting and encouraging.  Adam and I have been through these both before we got married and after.  Before we got married Adam choose to walk with me with my mother who had stage 4 brain cancer, he walked with me through the whole event.  The night before my mother died Adam crawled up in my mother’s bed and he hugged her and told her that I will be taken care of that he will always be with me that he wanted to marry me and we would get married (which BTW, we did get married 2 years later).  I still remember him sliding down the wall at the hospice facility when my mother passed away.  Then after we got married, the medical worse came again… we were blessed with Zach (which was “a for” better event) that turned into a worse situation.  For almost 4 years we lived by Zach, we weren’t able to put us first Zach came 1^st.  This meant that we spent time apart, had to put our desires in the back and focus on Zach.  There were many times that it would have been easier to walk away than to endure the things that we were going through.  The stats for divorce of couples with a child that has special needs has been reported to be in the high 80s or low 90s.  This stat exists again when you talk about couples who have had a child die.  This means that people walked away from the family when the family needed to be strong.  It was too hard to deal with and too hard to walk through so they walk away.  Now I have also learned that this is the same with friends… you have people who decide that it is too hard to watch, that they don’t know how to help so they don’t want to be there, there are people who decide that they have given enough time and that they no longer want to be part.  God doesn’t desert us, God holds us tight even when things are going wrong, God says that He will never leave or forsake us.  In Exodus 14:14 we are told that the Lord will fight for us, we need to be still.  I believe that this is in the midst of relationships too… in the midst of bad times, will we stay together and support or will we walk away.

8 years, it amazing to me… we are closer today and more in love today than the day we got married.  We have been blessed even with all the events.  I can’t wait to hear and to see all of the things that God is going to do from this point on.  I love my husband and am honored that he is mine and that he holds me to be that special.