Seventeen Years

(Photo credit goes to Liam, our eleven year old.)

17 years of marriage. This one is extra special for me because I love the significance of number seven. Also the number three. Add that I am 37 celebrating my 17th wedding anniversary.

That’s just fun.

As I was reflecting (shocker I know) on this day, I was taken back a little by the number. 17 years. Wow. If there is one number that I can be proud to see increase, it would be this one. I LOVE saying the amount of years Ralph and I have been married.

This morning, I was at church at 6:45 to prepare to lead worship. For my microphone check, I started singing “Good morning” from “Singin’ in the Rain,” but at the end I added, “It’s my 17th anniversary and I am singing next to someone who hasn’t even been married for a month.”

I love it.

I love marriage. I love to talk about marriage. I love to encourage others in theirs. I want to see them succeed. Coming from a broken family, I am very sensitive to this and so is Ralph.

I love to love my man. No, marriage is not easy, but it is possible to succeed in it. We live in a country where many people either won’t get married or stay married, Christian or not. It truly saddens me.

Marriage is one of the greatest glimpses of what Christ’s love is like. It’s one of the reasons for why He intentionally created it. When done well, we get the ability to experience what forgiveness, grace, and unity is REALLY like. What a gift!!! My heart breaks for the marriages that are struggling to say the same.

(Photo credit goes to Liam, our eleven year old.)

My love for Ralph grows and changes constantly and that’s because life does that. He has changed. I have changed. In many ways we are still the same people we said, “I do” to, but in lots of ways we aren’t. That's a wonderful thing to me.

Seventeen years ago, Ralph would not have asked me to buy a homeless veteran an ice cream cone, instead of getting one for himself and then proceed to talk with him for fifteen minutes. He also would not have decided to sell off some of his gym equipment, which is one of his passions, in order to have more time, space, and money for his family. Seventeen years ago Ralph would not have stepped WAY out of his comfort zone and into the world of entrepreneurship with me. 

When we were dating, Ralph told me that he would die for me. At the time, I took that as a literal death. Perhaps he meant it that way, too, but now it means something different to me. This is very vague, but to say that Ralph has died to himself for me and his children is an understatement.

I see Ralph's desire to be a better husband, father, and most importantly, man of God. He is willing to be still before the Lord in order to allow every pain and every shame surface so that he can heal. That takes courage and faith. He is not too prideful to be open and gut level honest with me or a friend. Ralph is not afraid to admit when he’s wrong and is always quick to apologize. At one point, Ralph told me couldn’t memorize scripture, and now, in front of his family, he’s reciting the entire armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20).

I am more proud of the man Ralph is now than I was seventeen years ago. And that’s not to say that I didn’t genuinely feel that way then. For crying out loud, I wrote and framed a 10x13 list of all the things I loved about him for our one year anniversary!

It is a gift and an honor to be married for seventeen years, but an even greater one because of who I am married to. May that be said by many others, too. May there be a renewed, Christ centered love within them. May there be healing and restoration in struggling marriages. God can do incredible things when there is.

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Is it appropriate to end this post with a photo of us kissing on our anniversary? :)