Marrying Young

Its good for a marriage to think back to your first weeks/months of marriage...to remember where you've come from. But when you got married at 18 and 19, looking back fills you with a sense of gratitude that you survived. I'm not talking marriage survival....I'm talking actual survival......living to tell about it. I decided to blog about some of the funny stories of our first year starting with our honeymoon. Now in thinking about our honeymoon you must know that we were not old enough to rent a car so flying anywhere was not an option. However Blake's parents did graciously say that they would let us stay in their time-share condo in Cancun. When we asked if we were old enough to stay at the resort, their reply was, "Oh, we would go too." Oh yes! Fabulous idea. I could just imagine driving off from the wedding with our parents in the backseat or wait....would we be in the backseat. Needless to say we decided to stay within driving distance. After we left the wedding we had to go back to Blake's house (i.e.. his parents house) to switch cars because when your friends are between the ages of 16-20 they "decorate" your car until its illegal to drive down the road much less across several counties. But anyway we were sitting in the front seat of the second car and before driving off Blake leaned over to kiss me and *ahem* break one or two of our dating rules (I might add that I made a ridiculous amount of rules early on in our boyfriend/girlfriend relationship that we stuck to like glue until our wedding day. Like the freckle two inches above my knee that I told him God put there so he would know as far up as he was allowed to touch before he married me. Yep...two inches above the knee. "We" also decided we would only kiss once a month but I was afraid we might have an accidental kiss on occasion so I'd only let him kiss me once every two months just in case..... Yes, I am afraid to say this is all very true..... And yes, I will be tattooing a freckle on Hope's leg around the age of 12.) But anyway...back to breaking a couple of rules in his driveway...... suddenly I gasped, he turned around and there was his uncle's very perky 40 something girlfriend waving enthusiastically and smiling hugely with her face smashed up to the window holding a big plate of wedding cake. Blake sheepishly rolled down the window and before he could open his mouth what's her name (can't remember because she and Blake's uncle broke up right after that and I haven't seen her since.) began to gush about how there was so much wedding cake left and she decided to hurry some over to us before we left. What an angel!!!! We decided to leave the driveway after quickly accepting our cake!

So our first stop on our honeymoon was a condo at Sam Rayburn with mirror ceilings in the bedroom. Oh yes, you read it right. Mirror ceilings. The bedroom was on the bottom floor and the stairs were in the bedroom that lead up to the top floor. On the second night, we kept hearing noises upstairs. I was scared! Finally Blake got up, grabbed his pocket knife and began to creep upstairs. Watching my man/boy husband headed off to protect me, I just remember thinking that I really wanted my Daddy. Our second part of our honeymoon was a bed and breakfast in Hot Springs. Upon arrival, I decided I didn't like the smell and cried my eyes out telling Blake that I did not want to stay and would he PLEASE go ask the lady if we could have our money back so that we could leave. He did exactly that, bless his dear heart and then had to come back and tell me that no we couldn't have our money back but that he did have a plan. Hiccuping and sniffing I asked him what his plan was. He said, "I'm going to hold you while you take a nap and when you wake up you tell me what you want to do. If you want to leave, we'll leave right then and not worry one bit about the money. I tearfully agreed and fell asleep in his arms while he watched Cool Runnings on TV. I woke up two hours later much happier and from that moment on, I can't remember ever feeling like I really wished I was with my Daddy instead. He was my new hero. (Daddy, if you read this you will always be my hero too!)

Well, we finished our honeymoon and a few days later we were headed back home for Christmas. The first night we stayed in his bedroom at his parents. We knew it would be weird but it was Christmas Eve and we wanted it to be romantic so we lit candles. Several minutes into our "first Christmas Eve...with candles" there's a knock at the door and his mom says she needs to come in to get the pies out of the the fridge. You have to go through Blake's room to get to the laundry room where they keep an extra fridge. Upon entering, she decides to turn and talk to us about the dangers of sleeping with candles lit, and how breathing in the fumes for a long period of time could be fatal. I have no idea how Blake responded. I was too busy with my head buried in his back thinking that I was going to die of embarrassment.

Back home at CFNI, we managed to somehow adjust to not living in single dorms anymore. HA HA HA HA HA. There were several times we would sit down for the 11:00 service and then after discussing it between ourselves announce to our friends that we were going to clock out and go home to take a nap instead of staying through the service, to which our single friends would holler out as we exited the IB, "We hate you, do you know that, we hate you!" Yeah, that was fun.....again proof of our age.....but fun still the same. Ok. One more story. The next Christmas right around our one year anniversary we decided to get a Christmas tree for our apartment. I had to have a real tree so we went to WalMart to find a tree small enough to fit in the trunk of our Kia Sephia. We found the perfect one and got it out to the car and NO WAY would that thing fit in our trunk. But lo and behold my manly husband had brought a rope to tie it to the roof. After some deep thinking he said, "Roll down all the windows." So we went around to all 4 windows and rolled them down. (They were manual of course.) Then my amazing husband started tying that tree to that car like you wouldn't believe. Through one window and over the top, through the next and over the top, on and on until he had that thing so secure it would not be going anywhere! And I thought he was so hot! Then we went to jump in but.....we could not open our doors. What the heck......OHHHH..........the doors are tied shut with the rope. I thought it was hilarious and began to laugh but poor Blake, his ego was shot. We eventually did get that tree home and I'm pretty sure I helped him repair his ego as well.

I could probably think of many other stories. I might have to do a part two sometime but for now I'll just say that we survived. God gave us wisdom when we needed it, lots of grace for ourselves and each other, an amazing love that continues to grow stronger and to this day we still have moments we know that .....eventually "we'll look back on and laugh."

silly girl

Just now, Hope was downstairs having a snack of cheerios and milk before bed. She hollered up to me, "Mommy, I need some more milk for my cheerios." I could see as I was going downstairs that she had about five soggy cheerios sitting on the bottom of her bowl. She had her face real close to her bowl when I heard her say to her five remaining cheerios, "Ahhh You little cuties."

Can't wait to tell Blake!

This morning I was ironing clothes for church and the kids were downstairs eating breakfast. (Blake was already at church) I heard the kids start to fight and then Hope burst out crying. Camden ran upstairs and into my room to report that it was not his fault. I said, "Camden I would just like for you guys to be kind to each other this morning and not fight. I want to get my heart ready to worship the Lord this morning at church and can't do that when I am angry." Then Camden said, "Well Mommy, that is just not going to change. You know how Daddy is meaner in the mornings? Well so are me and Hopie. We just can't help it." I was just so happy he said Daddy was meaner in the mornings and not Mommy!

time change

I finally corrected the time clock on my blog. All the times on my previous blogs have been wrong. My mom picked that up pretty quick when she saw that I had blogged at 7AM. She knew there must be a mistake! I have to add that all my times were changed to the correct times from my previous posts. Cool!!

Memories.......

The summer that I was fifteen and Blake was fourteen several of us from our youth group at church went to a kids camp to be junior counselors. I "liked" Blake and he "liked" me. Though we knew the other one liked the other one and we talked often, we had yet to actually talk to each other about our mutual "attraction" haha. He talked about it with our friends that were boys and I talked about it to our friends that were girls and then they talked to each other and brought back word. Wow! I think we were a little old for that even at 14 and 15 but...anyway. One night I handed him a note before evening service as my campers walked past his campers that said, "I am getting tired of talking through Ben, Leah, and Kacie are you?" Later he handed me the note back and it said, "Yes, so now what???" And that was twelve years ago today.....

Truth: I am not perfect

Blake and I attended a marriage conference this weekend with Dr. Gary Smalley and Dr.Greg Smalley. It was really good. It was mainly focused on helping yourself become spiritually and emotionally healthy. If two spiritually and emotionally healthy people are married, chances are their marriage will be healthy. Last night they talked about how we all have "buttons." There are certain things that people do that just really get to us and cause consistent reactions. These "buttons" are connected to specific fears that we have and these fears usually come from lies that we have believed and have allowed to become part of our heart, part of our core and our hearts determine our thoughts, words, and actions. We were encouraged to try to discover what our "buttons" are and what our reactions are when those buttons are pushed.
After the last session was over, we went to pick up the kids from their classes. We were the third couple in line at Hope's class and Blake and I were just watching her color and look sweet while we waited for our turn at the door. About that time, one of the children's workers came down the hall and asked all of us to move ourselves against the wall instead of out in the middle of the hallway where we were blocking the flow of people traffic. Well, immediately, I get mad at this woman. I start thinking about how she thinks she is so important because she works for the children's department and gets to boss people around and look smart. Then I "listen" to my thinking and realize.....hmmm I think I'm noticing a "button" here. The button is that I DO NOT like to be told that I am doing something wrong. I've always hated that. I have always tried VERY, VERY hard to always do everything exactly right so that I am never corrected. When I am corrected my reaction is always: anger. Anger at the person that corrected me. I can go back in my mind to quite possibly every time I have ever been corrected all the way back to the second grade and I still have bad feelings thinking about those moment and still feel anger towards the person that corrected me. I wish to this day that I could go back and change each of those times so that I would have done the perfect thing and not had to have been corrected. I asked the Lord on the way home, "What belief do I need to change in my heart so that I can be free of this?" I felt like that he showed me that I need to realize that I am not always going to be perfect. Sometimes I will make mistakes because I still have a sinful nature and I will sin and sometimes I will just make mistakes out of ignorance or bad judgement. Like the line last night.... I wasn't sinning, I was just oblivious to the fact that I was holding up traffic. The lady pointed it out to us to help and that should have been the end of it. There was no reason for me to be angry at the lady and no reason to wish that I could have stood in line perfectly against the wall so that I wouldn't have had to be corrected. It was what it was and now I know. I know its going to take time. It took time to develop the belief that I needed to be perfect all the time and it will take time to let this new belief take root and grow, that mistakes happen and its OK!! The Smalleys told us that only the Lord and His Word can uproot belief systems that have been growing in our hearts since we were children. They told us to find a scripture that speaks truth to us on our specific fears and memorize and meditate on it every day. So I need to find a scripture!
I was tested in this area again today. After the conference was over today at noon, the kids and I went and ate lunch and then picked something up for Blake to take back to him at the church. When I got close to the church I saw that there was a fire truck in the turn lane in front of the church. There must have been a wrecked car right in front of it. There was a police car behind the fire truck. It was halfway in the turn lane and halfway in the first lane. I saw that the firetruck was a little way past the turn in at the church so I went ahead and pulled in to the turn lane to turn into the church. I knew that I would probably be parallel to the police car when I got close enough to turn. Well when I got up close to the police car he turned the front of his car towards me. I wondered if he did that because he didn't want me to move forward or was he just trying to get more in the turn lane and out of the road. So I just watched him to see if he would look at me and point me back to the lanes to go around or if he would motion that I could go. Well he didn't look back at me at all. I saw that the cars coming the other way were about to all clear and I would be able to turn and since the police officer was ignoring me, I figured I was fine and pulled up parallel to him so I could turn. (I hope this is making some type of sense.) Well when I did that the officer threw his door open jumped out and screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??!!" I think my jaw hit the floor and I just kind of pointed at the church and mouthed, I need to get to the church. Then with his face as red as a tomato and all his veins popping from his head, face, and throat he yelled, "GO AROUND!!!" and pointed me back to the far lane. As quick as I could, (I think I was about to pass out) I maneuvered between his car and the fire truck to get back to the far lane. About that time the firetruck and the tow truck that I could now see in front were needing to get out of the turn lane and back onto the road, but they couldn't because I was in the first lane now because the officer forced me out of the turn lane and the traffic was car to car in the far lane. So now I had the fire truck and tow truck drivers glaring at me because I was blocking them from getting on to the road and I don't even WANT to know what the furious officer was doing at that point. I was mortified!!! My kids were yelling from the back seat, "What is wrong with that police officer, Mommy? Why is he yelling at you? What did you do? Call Daddy!!" I have made this commitment to try to give my kids a good attitude towards police officers so I tried to tell them that he was just trying to keep us safe and that obviously Mommy wasn't doing a safe thing and he was worried about us and that he probably had, had a bad morning because it is really hot outside. However, I wanted to tell them that he was a woman hating jerk!! Then once again I felt the Lord remind me......"You made a mistake." Now you know what to do next time. No big deal - just go on." I said in my heart, "But, God he shouldn't have screamed at me. Convict him for being so mean. He was mean, right, God?" I heard him say, "He is not your problem. Your reaction is your problem. Let yourself make mistakes, forgive yourself, and go on.
God is so good for not letting us stay where we are, isn't he? This is the life abundantly that he talks about in His Word. Abundance is not material possessions. It is freedom. Freedom from sin. Freedom from anger, bitterness, self-hatred. It is love. Love for ourselves, our families, our spouses, the world.....and police officers.

WHAT?!

The worship tour has been cancelled. Blake will NOT be going away for 17 days.