
4 years

For most of my life I didn’t think I’d see a day of marriage let alone two years of it. It’s funny how wrong a person can be.
I was never into the idea of being in love but that goes to show how little I know about real love. Love is not about the moments that will move an audience to tears on a big screen. It’s not about the pre-packaged hearts and flowers. After all, the greatest act of love was a poor man dying on a cross.
This year, more than any before, I’ve seen the beauty of love that persists even in difficult and dark places.
The port, the PEG and having oxygen have been different challenges than we had before and yet David’s love for me has seen past those.
I can do less and less and simple things tire me faster but David has adapted to that. Instead of the active things he would like to do, he chooses a film or something that I can easily do. As he put it, ‘It’s ok because though I’d like to do something more active, I want to do what you can do.’
This year we’ve been able to count CF among our blessings. This year we’ve learned that God really does work through people who are weak. This year we’ve fitted our God-given roles that little bit better. This year we’ve grown-up in ways we didn’t even realise we could.
Our third year starts today and we trust and pray that, over the next 365 days, our marriage and our lives will yell ‘Jesus is King!’ louder than ever.
I love you, David.
One year ago today, I was putting on my beautiful ivory wedding dress, picking up my bouquet and speaking words of wisdom and comfort to my Dad (who was a lot more nervous than I was!) If you’d told me at that moment what this year would bring I would either have not believed you or, if I had, I’d have sat down and cried. Because this has been the most difficult year of my life.
Some would think of the whole thing as a sad coincidence. We get married and then I embark on the worst health journey I’ve had. So far in our marriage there have been 4 weeks when I’ve been pretty well. Not what we planned. One day we’re hoping to enjoy our honeymoon. It just keeps getting postponed. It’s been hard. Sometimes almost unbearably so. I won’t lie, there have been times when I’ve wished God would just take me home. It’s got to be better than a future of this. Even as I get better this time round, there’s a sadness because it’s only a matter of time until it all happens again.
But in the midst of the health rubbish, there’s a constant figure. And he’s my husband. This time last year, I was hearing him promise ‘in sickness and in health.’ We always knew that that would be our hard bit. Some people have money troubles but health, or rather the lack of it, is our thing. If I’m honest, I didn’t always believe David could do this. Oh, I never doubted his willing but I knew how little he knew about real life with me. But I underestimated him. And I’m so glad I did. All the time, I’m seeing more of his love and as I go deeper, I’m more amazed. David’s love for me is beautiful. When he brings me flowers and tells me he loves me. Or when he goes and gets the car so I don’t have to walk so far. Or when he hugs me when I cry. Or helps me shower in hospital. Or looks into my tired, ill eyes and tells me that I’m beautiful. And there’s more.
If you’d told me a year ago what this year would bring I would either have not believed you or, if I had, I’d have sat down and cried. But then I’d have picked up my bouquet and run as fast as I could to the church. Because if I knew then what I know now, I’d know that I needed to be married to David. I could never have done this on my own. God knew that. And so, in His kindness He gave me a sacrificial, loving man.
One year has gone and I love him more than ever. I can’t say I’m looking forward to all the next year will hold but in one thing I’m certain. There’s no one I’d rather share it with.
I love you, David.
New world, new people, new purposes. A lot changed six months ago as we said ‘I will.’ 2 little words changed us, changed our lives, changed our identities. And it’s a lot to get to grips with. Six months in, I still haven’t got it. Maybe it’s because I’m a slow learner, I’ll be the first to admit that. Maybe it’s because these changes are hard. Or maybe it’s because these changes never really stop still, never give you a minute to get used to them.
There have been hard changes. I always knew that would happen. I sat in a hospital room with a wall between me and my husband. A wall of physical pain and emotional pain with the question Why? written all over it in capital letters. I watched relationships change and knew that I’d never be able to get the old ones back. I had my daily schedule interrupted, my habits questioned and my property shared. Petty, perhaps, but still harder than you might think.
But I’ve tasted goodness in new ways. God pronounced his creation to be very good. And so do I. This thing works. We’re still babies. We can’t colour in the lines. We can’t look after ourselves. We can’t even walk without falling over. But we’re growing. We’ll never get there, whatever ‘there’ might be, but we’re noticing the growing and that counts. I believe in God’s grace now more than ever. I understand Jesus’s death now more than ever. I feel the Spirit working now more than ever. In just six months.
It’s funny how you think you know what’s coming and yet what actually comes is so different and so much more glorious than you thought. It’s funny how small our minds are. I’ve been given a glimpse of something more and something greater. I’m living this bride thing in a more tangible way than I was. And the beauty of it scares me. How can I do this? This bright, beautiful, wonderful, pure thing? And yet the very one who asks me to be his bride helps me to become his bride. I see love lived out in front of me and it helps me become lovely. I see purity lived out in front of me and it helps me become pure. I see strength and kindness and laughter and weeping and prayer and in those things I am changed.
It is a new world. I have a new calling. I’m to be a new person. I have a new person to die for and a new one to live for. I’m to breath a new breath of life and live it out. Here I am.
Thank you, David.
I love you.
I know, I know. I’m a young girl who’s been married for all of 5 months and I have zero children and therefore know nothing about parenting. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’ve almost got it. I certainly don’t claim to know much about being a parent. But I know an awful lot about not being one. I’ve had 22 years experience. 6 of those have been in the knowledge that in all likelihood I’ll never know about being a parent from first hand experience. And, to be honest, that stinks. I’m not talking about a little bad smell here. I’m talking gut-twisting stink. Since I was 16 I’ve had to face up to the fact that I’ll probably never hold my own child, never hear anyone call me Mummy, never be able to make my husband a Dad, never get to use the list of favourite baby names I’ve had stored up for years and all the rest.
As of yesterday David and I have been married 11 weeks. It feels like a very long time although I do realise we’re still very much novices! One of the reasons it feels so long is that we seem to have gone through a fair amount in those 11 weeks. People call the first year of marriage the honeymoon period and often expect that nothing bad will happen in that time if not a lot longer. And for lots of people this is true. But I’m one of those people who feel old at things fairly quickly. I’ve had certain struggles that not many people have to face this young and those have carried on into marriage and have got harder for both of us in a short space of time. I’m always ill at some level but I’ve been pretty ill for 8 of our 11 weeks and continue to be so. Nobody really knows why this is happening and this brings the uncertainty about our earthly future that we’ve always felt quite strongly even more close to home.