Immeasurably More

Our 6th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday Michael and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! In so many ways it really is hard to believe we've already been married for six years. We were talking yesterday about how we definitely knew each other well before we got engaged and then married, but it really is amazing to compare how well we know each other now--six years later--than when we were first married. On Saturday Michael was in a meeting at church and someone was speaking about intimacy and how intimacy with your spouse or with God is really about peeling back all of the layers until you really get to know someone at the very essence of who they are--the most vulnerable places of ourselves.

Six years ago, we never would have known the struggles nor the deep joy that were in store for us. We never dreamed that we would have problems getting pregnant. We never imagined that we would miscarry our first child. We would never have thought that we would struggle with infertility and that no doctor would be able to tell us what the cause of our infertility struggle was. I dreamed of one day adopting but never knew that through adoption I would have a son who would be the first to call me "Mommy." We never could have planned our lives more perfectly than what God has blessed us with.

Through our struggles we are able to say that we really do have faith in a God who loves us. Not a love for someone because all we have experienced has been good, but a love for Someone who has been good to us even when things are hard and we are filled with grief and with confusion. For Michael and I it was always easy to love God--we knew He was real and for the most part our entire lives had been easy and full of good things. It was a lot harder to say that we love God when our dreams were crashing down and when things didn't seem fair or just. But, that was truly the point that our faith was tested and the point at which we knew our faith was real--we could trust God even when our circumstances seemed otherwise.

"In Christ alone my hope is found;He is my light, my strength, my song...
From life's first cry to final breath,Jesus commands my destiny."