Sixteen years ago, just babies ourselves, we took a vow and said “I do” and we promised all our tomorrows with barely any yesterdays behind us.

And we made a love and made a home and we birthed babies and birthed a business. And somewhere along the way our lives got busy. Yours with your work and your ministry. Mine with our house and our home school. And we had one of the strongest marriages I knew, yet somehow we lost ourselves and we lost us.

Then one day we both woke up and realized we were in bed with a stranger. A stranger we had been married to for a decade and a half. And we looked in the mirror and a stranger met us there too. And we searched, to find ourselves and to find each other again.

And this sixteenth anniversary feels a bit like that first year. Two people committed to life together, learning to know one another again. Two people trying to figure out who they are and where they belong in the world and in each other’s life. Two people trying to make a way together. To make a love and a life that will last.

And as we look ahead, I won’t lie, I look ahead with a little bit of fear. Because this year was a road I never expected for us and it was a year I thought “us” as we knew it might be over. And I know there is no iron-clad guarantee we won’t go there again, except grace.

But I also look forward even more with hope. Because God is a God of abundant mercy and He delivered us from that dark pit and He is doing a new thing in our marriage. And because He has called us to Himself and to each other and He will make a way. And because He has brought gifts out of that dark season, gifts we may not have received any other way.

And so I see beauty and grace rising from ashes. I see Him making a valley of suffering into a door of hope. And I see Him making two an even stronger one, all entwined in His love.

For His Glory ~