Today, 3-28-2012, is Eric & I's three and a half year wedding anniversary! But you know what they say about time flying when you're having fun? It's true! And, since they also say that money (and financial problems) is the Number One killer of marriages, so I figure we've got a huge head start on all of you folks who are financially comfortable!
Anyway, even though Eric has not been able to find a job yet here in Seattle (and we pray for God's provision daily), and we can't see any way out of this current murky pit of financial mire, and we really can't even envision what it will look like for us to FINALLY be able to support ourselves financially, we still have dreams.
We dream of a time, hopefully in the near future, when we can buy a few acres of land (which is extremely difficult to come by here in Western Washington!) and operate our small farm. We dream of having enough money to adopt a couple of children from foreign countries, providing them with a stable and loving home that they would not otherwise know. I also dream of being able to regularly donate money to worthy charities, missions work, and our church. There are so many great ministries and organizations out there who desperately need funds to keep running and changing the world, and I wish that I could provide those necessary funds. So we have pretty large dreams, and these visions of the future are complicated by the fact that we have no income, no home of our own, and absolutely no way of making these dreams happen.
But here's the best part. WE are not alone in trying to make these dreams come true. God is the architect of our lives, and He helps us to create our own path through life, following closely at His heels. So we are not alone, which is good, because it will certainly take a divine miracle to help our dreams become reality!
We want extraordinary. We don't want to simply live decent, normal, or even "good" lives. We want so much more than that. And especially right now, we want so much more than to simply survive. We want to thrive, and to help our little corner of the world to thrive as well!
Growing up, I always knew, deep down in the secret recesses of my heart, that God was writing a fantastic, miraculous Love Story for me to be swept up into for the rest of my life. I somehow knew (and desperately desired) God to be preparing for me an amazing husband who would be my perfect complement, would understand me more completely than anyone else on earth, and would fight for me and our love. I had no idea when or where this seemingly too-good-to-be-true guy would come from; I just hoped & prayed God would help me recognize him when he showed up! And I'm happy to report that, although I almost missed him at first, that God opened my eyes to see the light, and I married this guy before he could escape!
I yearned to find the right guy all through college, and while I had a couple crushes, this young man never showed up. Then, for the span of a few months immediately post-college, I thought for sure I had finally found him. This guy was pretty amazing, but his life was in a different place than mine, and he wasn't ready for me. We both knew it, and despite efforts to make it work, I quickly grew tired of feeling ignored and practically unwanted, so I ended it. It was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. But I took the chance of being alone and single (yet again!), stepped back for a bit and reconnected with God, and before I knew it, I saw Eric standing apart from the crowd. The crowd was full of "good" guys, but none who were exactly right for me. But I soon realized Eric to be different, and he quickly swept me off my feet. And the rest, as you know, is history. And indeed, it took a miracle to bring us together, because Eric is seven years older than me, he grew up in Seattle while I grew up in Cincinnati, and we did not attend the same college. It would have been very easy for us to never meet.
I never knew love could be like this! We laugh, we pick on each other, we tickle, we smooch, we brave the dreaded "morning breath" to kiss anyway, because it's important to start the day off with a kiss, we have each others' backs, and most importantly, we are a team that will never be torn apart. We tackle everything together. We promised to be each others' biggest fan on the day we married, exactly 3.5 years ago, and we remember that promise daily, so as not to forsake it, each other, or God.
God meticulously crafted and authored my amazing, all-encompassing, wonderfully complex love story, and enabled that dream to come true. And I trust Him wholeheartedly, that He will help all our other dreams come true as well (although perhaps not exactly in the same way we envisioned)!
What about you? Is God actively fulfilling a dream of yours? Do you have an amazing love story like mine you'd like to share?
