In the Last Ten Years

Brady and I chose and committed to each other for life ten years ago!

We live in a broken world where that sounds like a super long time. In some ways, I suppose it is. A LOT can happen in ten years! But on other hand, its only ten years. I hope we have many decades of togetherness left!

I could recap our last ten years together, but really, the last 6.5 years are all right here, at your disposal. If you wanted a refresh on how we got together, that post is HERE. The obvious things/people I’d talk about in that kind of post, you already know about. Plus, our children, our friends, our business, and our house aren’t US. They’re very important parts of us, but this post is about Hailey and Brady.

I know no one is immune to issues and struggles and even breaking up. I’m in no way trying to make some big ballsy stance on marriage or divorce or whatever else, BUT a while back, I learned something super valuable about our marriage.

A couple years ago, we hit a bit of a snag in our relationship. Yes, I’m going to keep it that vague. But it was an ugly one. One that triggered all kinds of difficult things. There was a stretch of feeling “stuck” in our marriage.

Except that, in the midst of all of our tears and arguments and fatigue, there wasn’t even a MOMENT where it crossed my mind that it was over. It hurt SO badly, but I think the reason it hurt so badly was because of how invested we both are in our marriage, and how deeply we love each other. We knew it was going to be ugly to get through, and it was going to be such hard work. A brutal inconvenience in the midst of our happy life. If we were wishy washy on each other at all, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as bad. It could’ve been an escape. But we didn’t want an escape. I remember saying to Brady that I was SO MAD that we had to fight, haha!

So obviously, we made it through. It took a while, but we never stopped loving each other. We didn’t even stop liking each other! God truly covered us in that time. We are still here!

When we lost Jamin, we kept hearing how baby loss ripped loving families apart, and how we needed to work to stay open to each other. Great advice, absolutely. But I admit, I remember being a bit perplexed once some of the shock of our loss had worn off. Torn us apart? Not even a little bit! We had never held each other tighter than we did those days/weeks/months. The depth of our relationship grew exponentially during that time. I have never seen such a clear display of God’s care for us. ALL the glory is His!

They’ve certainly not been perfect years, but they’re part of what makes us us!