In 2019, Christopher and I celebrated our 20-year wedding anniversary. It seemed like a giant milestone. In my post for Mother’s day, I mentioned that big dates during the year are a time for me to process and reflect. Not to wish things were different, but more of an awareness of what might need to change to have continued growth. Below are the vows that I re-wrote at 20 years.

I, Julia Esther, take you Christopher Lee, to be my wedded husband.
To have always and to hold tightly, from this day until eternity;

through house remodels and home improvement store shopping,
through two miscarriages and through four healthy births,
through parenting successes and home-school failures,
through family blessings and ministry hurts,
through volatile grain markets and crop hail damage,
through toddlers and teenagers,
through cross-country road trips and big moves,
through gallbladder attacks, hormones, and aging joints,
through each stage of life that seems to pass more quickly,

to love deeply and cherish every moment even though it is not easy or convenient;

until death parts us. I pledge to you my continued intentional faithfulness.

Since 2019, we have graduated three of our children from home education and launched them into different directions of life…. trades, accelerated college, part-time jobs. The process of transferring more of the responsibility for their lives and onto them. We have one teenager who just got his driver’s license and is rapidly maturing before our eyes. We have faced so many decisions for our children and for our businesses since the world has gotten crazier. We have seen some record-setting years in both directions for both of our businesses. We have faced surgery and health struggles (mostly for me). We have had moments when we are so grateful for all the time we have spent together as a family and then moments when it feels like we did not take enough time to instill beliefs. We have faced deaths and new decades.

It can feel like the longer we are married the easier it should be. We should have made the little daily changes that make big yearly changes. We should have it all figured out how to love each other better. We are realizing that each stage of this life journey of marriage has its own challenges. New opportunities for growth with every year, phase, and stage. We have also realized that the unconditional love that is needed in all relationships is only a gift from God, not something we can conjure up in and of our own strength. We look forward to learning and applying this more in the decades to come.