For better or worse.

My first date with Chris was April 16, 2001. It was here:

The country songs I hear on the radio today remind me of our first years together. He would pick me up in his old red chevy pickup and I would climb in, slide over and steal his baseball hat. It was a perfect love… really. He worked at Chi-Chi’s restaurant and his shift ended at 10. I would drive to the restaurant and park, just waiting for him to come out, anticipating spending 10 minutes with him until I had to go back home and make curfew. He would come out, smelling of fajitas in a hot pepper themed shirt and I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around him. We were teenagers and in one another we found completion. He grounded me. I encouraged him. He protected me. We took care of one another with the greatest care. After 4 months of dating, sitting in his little bedroom at his parents house watching CMT, he told me he was in love with me and we both cried. It was perfect. We didn’t have to go through any break-ups, or cheating, or roof shaking arguments to figure it all out. It just was. It was as though we had both been walking and when we met, we walked in step… to college together… marriage… moving to NC… careers… babies…

Fast forward 13 years and it’s really only now that I can see all of the many reasons God chose us for one another. God saw these last few years and knew that Chris was the man I would need. God looks at my life as a complete work of art. He sees the ending of my story and all of the messed up and happy parts in the middle. He’s working on things, preparing us now for what He knows is to come around the corner. What was to come around our corner about 3 and half years ago was the first of two life-threatening baby deliveries. Both times, my precious boys and me were hanging… fear, unspeakable fear… and somehow… peace. When you’re walking head on into a hurricane, you had better hope you have a hand to hold and I did. It’s the same hand that opened my car door when I was 17. It’s the same hand that held my heart so delicately all those years. It’s that same gigantic hand that can palm a basketball that has stood by my side through the most difficult, painful and crushing times of my life. I’ll never forget after Landon was born and we had time to settle into a NICU routine of sorts, I said to Chris, “It’s still hard to believe he is here. We could have lost him and he’s here.” And he said to me with tears in his eyes, “Baby, I could have lost you.” And it hit me when he said that just how much his heart bleeds for me. Sometimes I feel terrible for putting him through that, twice. But I know he wouldn’t trade a moment of his life with me for anything under the sun. I am his entire world and if in that world comes difficulty, so be it. We’ve had difficulty, who hasn’t? In February of this year, after 6 months of prayer, physical pain, medical issues, tears and being told my multiple doctors that another pregnancy would most likely result in a far worse outcome, we made the decision that I would get a full hysterectomy. Sometimes, it’s when you look back on a time in your life that you can see it for what it really was. For me, that was depression. It was heart breaking for me experience such finality. Yet, at the exact same time, it was also an amazing reminder of how God chose to give us two children, alive and well. So many women, women I love haven’t been able to experience that and I hurt for them. Thinking of others is the one thing that always brings me out of my dark place and back into a space of gratitude. The physical and emotional healing that needed to take place after that surgery was long and it was hard. Chris would juggle working 9 hours a day, while caring for the boys, while caring for me, while caring for the home. If you were someone who helped us during that time, you will never know the impact but I promise you that you will see it in Heaven.

Fast forward to present day and I am about a month out from a pretty invasive, PAINFUL surgery that was done under both of my arms, to remove cysts. Yeah, it’s been a difficult 2014 so far. You may not always see that side because the parts of my heart that feel grateful and loved are so much bigger than the parts that feel discouraged. Chris is the one who sees every moment and loves me through each and every one. The foundation that God laid for us so many years ago, that bond, that “perfect love” has been the thread holding us together and becoming tighter and tighter. Being 17 and in love was so much fun. Being 31 and looking back over recent years, makes me now fully understand just how precious that love was and is and will always be.