I was reminded when I did my blogging survey that one subject I do not talk about very often is marriage! When I read that, I thought “huh…I don’t!” Then I wondered why I don’t? I am open about every other area of our life, but I marriage is something that I do not talk often of.
Time to change that.
Dan and I have been married for 10 years (wow, I can’t believe I just typed that number!) and it has been incredible. Incredible not in the “oh-so-perfect” marriage incredible, but the “we’ve been through a lot and are in love even MORE” incredible. Every marriage has.
We are just “us”. We are nothing special. We are just two strangely unique people that God joined together. I am not even sure I ever told the story of how we met so let me explain…
Dan’s parents ran a SERVE project in the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph area for many many years. The summer after my freshman year of high school, I attended this SERVE and Dan was the drummer in the worship band. He was one mighty fine drummer too, but WAY out of my league. So, of course nothing happened.
Fast forward to the summer after my senior year of high school. I went on that SERVE trip again, but Dan was a whitewater raft guide that summer in South Carolina, so no Dan the drummer man. Though, I did get to know Dan’s parents a bit because I had to take a prescription medication that they had to give to me. Anyways, that opened the door to conversations with them.
Dan is 2 years older than me, and he attended a community college for 3 years before deciding to go into youth ministry and attend Kuyper College (then known as Reformed Bible College). I was a sophomore at Kuyper, when Dan arrived on campus. I was a Resident Assistant at the time and while I was welcoming the girls on my floor, there was this man that came up the stairs.
It was Dan’s dad and he said he must have “accidentally” gone to the wrong floor. Dan’s room was on the main floor and you had to go up two flights of stairs to get to my floor, so needless to say, it was fairly intentional! Anyways, he kindly tried to persuade me to go down a floor and talk to his son. I was far from outgoing when it came to guys, so I was nervous the rest of the day.
Until I found a wing woman to come with me.
I grabbed a fellow RA, and we headed to Dan’s room. I think I sweated more than I spoke, but needless to say, I accepted Dan’s dad’s challenge.
That night, there was an all-school bonfire and at one point, I saw this attractive guy, hands in the pocket, who made khaki shorts and a t-shirt look mighty fine.
It was Dan.
There was a large group of us talking in a big circle around the fire, when all of a sudden I realized Dan and I were the only ones left in the group, sharing about our lives and our passions.
That night I went to bed wondering “huh, what just happened?”
You see, that summer I made a promise to myself that I would not date anyone because I knew my school work load and being a RA would take up all of my time, so I was NOT going to let a boy get in the way.
God chuckled and had a different plan.
We had gone on a walk around campus (which was a sure sign to everyone else on campus that a relationship was in the making, when you took a walk around “the loop”). Yet I was completely oblivious. Still.
That first week of school, for some reason one night dinner wasn’t served in the cafeteria. Like any savvy college student would do, I made my Easy Mac and called it good enough. Well, Dan called and asked if I wanted to go out for supper. I told him no because I had already eaten. I know, I know, I was not getting his drift.
We hung up and moments later, his RA called me and said “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? He was asking you OUT? You can’t shut down a man like that!”
Oops!
Then a few minutes later, Dan called again and asked if I had dessert?
Of course I didn’t, and thus began our relationship.
We dated through the last 2 3/4 years of college and got married 2 weeks after we graduated in 2006. It was a chilly day – as in like 39 degrees chilly. In MAY. It was warmer on our friend’s wedding day in December at 41, than ours, but that is why they say do not plan a wedding around the weather. Ours was a perfect example of that!
We have now been married over 10 years! I know it’s cliche to say, but we couldn’t be happier. That doesn’t go to say that we have not had our rough patches like every marriage (which I will talk about later), but it has been because of those times, that we are stronger than ever!
We truly can’t wait to continue to grow old together! And now to grow old with our daughter by our side too.
