19 years single and 19 years married. I will leave all of you to do the math on my actual age.
Christopher and I have joked about the time when it would be even up…hard to believe that is now! Although it seems like yesterday, it also seems like a lifetime ago. How did we get to this point so quickly? How do we have three teenagers and one 9-year-old who thinks he is a teenager? How have we lived in three homes, been pregnant six times, have 4 healthy children, homeschooled for 6 years, experienced loss, been overwhelmed by joy, and so on? How has it gone so fast and yet sometimes so slow?
Often when you have been doing something a long time, you get tired of the monotony. But in 19 years of marriage to Christopher Lee Jaeger, there is an underlying foundation of hope and a future that overrides the daily struggles. Sometimes a little monotony would not be the worse thing with my spontaneous sarcastic husband. I am not saying we have a perfect marriage. I am not saying that we didn’t use to fight every Sunday night. I am not saying that I don’t lash out in frustration at him. I am not saying that the way he folds his clothes doesn’t drive me up a wall. I am not saying that his sarcasm hasn’t rubbed off on me. I am NOT saying that sometimes when I am hangry or hormonal, I don’t say things that are mean! I am not saying that everything has been a cake walk
What I am saying, there is no one else I would rather do life with than the one God chose for me 19 years ago. Our courtship was fast. First Sunday afternoon with my family in October 1998, engaged by Christmas, and married in June 1999. The 2nd time we ever talked, we shared our salvation testimonies with each and talked about the future that God might have for us both together.
I can see why in the Bible there is so much correlation between marriage and the church being the bride of Christ. The more you get to know Jesus, the more you want to know him. The more hope you have for your future of eternity with Jesus. The longer I am married, the more hope I have for the future with Christopher as well. The more his unconditional love has broken down barriers in my heart that I did not even know where there. The more I follow Jesus and seek to love him with my whole heart, the more His unconditional love heals those raw hurt places that at one point were hidden.
So today after 19 years, I am choosing to publicly give thanks for the sanctification process of marriage to a stubborn, sarcastic, loyal, German-Scottish farm boy who has loved me gently and unconditionally for 19+ years. A man who isn’t too proud to get on his knees before God….a man who has learned what it means to love me in sickness and in health, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, as long as we both shall live.
**credit to Christian Kalfas Art for doing the above artistic rendering of our original wedding photo.
night