It Took A Week To Decide Marrying You...After 20 yrs, I Would Do It Again

On Wednesday we reach a milestone in our marriage, our 20th year, and yet it feels like time has passed so fast.  Reflecting back on the journey, many things are different than when we started.  For the first time we are technically alone. Those of you that know our story know how we started. Both of our children are young adults.  Our daughter is married and lives with her husband. Our son has just finished his first year at American University and though he comes back each school break, he spends most of his time away.  The most important change has been in us.  The first ten years of our marriage were probably the hardest as far as adjusting to each other. We both have very strong and different personalities. My wife is more outgoing and sociable and I am the opposite, or at least I was when we started.  I was more structured, organized and less flexible than she was.  Today, we are comfortable with each other's differences, for the most part, and we have learned from each other.

During this time we were involved in church planting and after six years of attempting it, we left it. It was an invaluable experience but also a difficult one. It was a time where my faith was stretched and shaken and led to the most difficult phase in my spiritual life, but that's in the next ten years.

The second ten years were by no means easy either.  These years were filled with suffering and struggles in our parenting and especially our faith. We suffered losses during this time and we were changed forever.  We struggled with our daughter as she was going through her teen years.  Mostly, it was how we both thought differently about what we ought to do.  Thankfully, it was a short time (it didn't feel this way then) and for the most part we kept her from undesirable consequences.  We saw her move on with her life as she became of age and four years later we sent our son to college. During this time we also had our struggles in our faith.  We were wounded and disappointed with others and especially God. Yes, God.  We attended church but we didn't get involved in ministry.  Thought sometimes it feels like these years were wasted, they provided us with the opportunity to learn what we didn't learn before.  God was at work mending us and re-shaping us.  

Today, we start our next decade together (and we were told we wouldn't last six months). We have been involved in ministry the last five months, our faith in Christ is stronger (or more mature) we are committed to each other and still in love-madly in love.  We are looking forward to what is next for us. With God's grace, the prayers of many, the support of our wonderful friends and family, we expect the next ten years (I don't want to be too presumptuous and say 20 or more) to be even better. I can't say they will be easy, but I wouldn't want to be with anyone else but you my dear wife. So let's saddle up and ride together the next decade. We might even have time for a celebration half way through! (hint)