Some people live a long, healthy young life with no intentions of settling down. If I were to be completely honest, I think I started seriously considering marriage when I was, oh, I don't know, maybe nine. Maybe it is because I've always known I wanted to be a mom. Maybe it is because I had some sort of low self-esteem and needed to have someone by my side to feel worth something. Maybe it is because this has always been a God-given dream.
I know what it is like to be a teenager surrounded by friends with their boys-in-tow and be alone. I know what it is like to graduate from high school never having been kissed. I know what it is like to lie to a group of girls that of course I had already french kissed. I know what it is like to go through college watching peers 'hook up', get STDs, get pregnant, and wreck their sanity over messy sex lives, all the while thinking that I am light years away from being that grown up.
I know what it is like to come to Christ and all of a sudden be extremely grateful for God's protection. Learning the meaning of the word holy and understanding why I was set apart. And yet, even after becoming a Christian, I also know what it is like to look through the youth group wondering if my future husband is somewhere there. Pray that the one close friend you have sees what a Godly wife you'd make.
For my entire life, I placed marriage in a pedestal. At first, for the lack of a romantic relationship. And then, when I was twenty-two my parents got divorced, and my need to have someone just got worst. My husband was a childhood friend of mine, and he came back into my life a couple of years later. I finally had what I had always wanted, and yet, for a long time, I kept expecting things to fall apart.
He couldn't be that great of a boyfriend. Our relationship couldn't be that peaceful. Our love couldn't be that strong. I beat myself for not knowing how to behave in an adult relationship, and attempted to follow the examples of friends and family only to see that it did not work. I cried countless nights over the idea that he might just get fed up with me and leave me.
Yet, he never did. He has never raised his voice to me. Never spoken unkind words. Never stormed out of the room. Never treated me with disrespect, in private or public. He has been showing me Christ's love way before he understood who Christ was himself. I was willing to settle for much less. I would have been content with much less. Yet, God had infinitely more for me than I had planned.
Daddy listening to baby Arthur's heartbeat
