Four years of I do

Four years ago, I was gathered around a table in my father’s backyard, retelling stories and laughing ’til I cried with my soon to be husband and my China family. The family that had literally just finished the semester of teaching, hopped on a plane from Beijing to Seattle, and then immediately driven over mountain passes…arriving just in time to catch the tail end of the rehearsal dinner.

My worlds were colliding in a beautiful way, and it was and is one of the happiest of my days. This family by experience not blood that had walked beside me in sickness and in health – some for nearly all of those six years in that foreign land – sharing memories with the one to walk with me forevermore in sickness and in health. The rest of the tables and guests cleared, but we remained as dusk fell.

That last night of singleness I crawled into the king sized bed soon to be shared with my husband with two of my oldest and best friends, and woke to the day I had hoped and dreamed of for far too many years.

There were no doubts, no nerves, no questions that morning, but pure eagerness and astonishment that I would get to marry this man. I remember that stroll up the hill – all dressed, hair perfectly pinned, lashes expertly curled by none other than our photographer – up the hill to my waiting groom. There was love and promise and hope and future all piled up in his eyes. Oh how I tried to be present to the many gathered that day – knowing that when your people and your home stretches across so many states and continents that such a gathering is a rare thing indeed. But for the most part my eyes and my heart were only for him, and joy bubbled over, and I knew this was the start of something great.

The counsel and warnings had been numerous of clashing ways and thoughts and priorities, of the bumps and bruises of learning to live out our I dos. But by sheer magnanimous grace, helped along by a friendship forged deep over hundreds of hours on skype with nothing to do but talk about all the corners of our hearts and a husband who knows the age old secret that the greatest delight is in the giving of oneself for another, those bumps and bruises were few and far between.

Wisdom of this world would say to take time to enjoy and treasure each other, but instead we threw pregnancy hormones into the mix a mere four months into marriage. But what better way to solidify and test and prove those I dos than by that idol revealing, self crushing path of parenthood. Long newborn nights and endless fussy strolls around the block and yet another blowout…followed by that first smile, first belly laugh, first word. The beautiful rewards of this self giving, pouring out of love. And this friendship and this love sent roots down into deeper and richer soil, and romance of a different variety bloomed bright in the midst of duty and laundry and bedtimes and bags under our eyes.

And then came the addition of another child, and a road neither of us desired to walk. We knew. We knew those long hard days of waiting and not knowing and grieving and pleading could drive us down two separate roads…two roads that could be difficult to bring together again. And so we prayed. Prayed for togetherness in the midst of the storm. Prayed that even if the ship rocked, we could at least stay in the same ship. And by God’s grace we watched love take deeper root, watched hearts broken in ways that they could be knitted closer together. He hoped and when my hope wavered I clung to his hope and together we clung to Jesus.

That fateful match on a dating website in the fall of 2010 had seemed like a one in a million chance meeting. The bringing together of two who had no other ties or connections, nothing else to join them. Little did we know that we each carried one tiny, minuscule, extraordinarily rare recessive gene that would catapult us on a journey where we would get to see the Lord work in such intimate and personal and miraculous ways.

When you stand at that altar, all dressed in white and heart fluttering with love, you have no idea exactly what you are saying I do to. But on that day I knew who I was saying I do to, and the who is what makes all the difference in all of the whats of our days. In a mere four years we’ve been through three moves, four job positions, two children, and a lot of laughter, and a lot of tears, and a lot of hands to the plow. And tomorrow I’ll sneak away with my best friend for a quick twenty four hours, just the two of us, to remember and celebrate and forge that friendship just another layer deeper.

Here’s to many, many more years of adventuring and continuing to say I do, my dear.