14

Last month my husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. We've never been huge on celebrations. We may go out to eat, catch a movie- something like that. We did get away without the boys for a weekend to celebrate our 10th. The more I think about marriage and what all it entails- how amazingly wonderful it can be and how crazy difficult it can be at other times- I think every single anniversary year needs to be celebrated.
If anyone had asked me during our first year of marriage if Jim and I would make it to fourteen, I don't know that my answer would have been a very confident "yes." In fact, I was a bit skeptical at times that we'd make it to two. To be fair, it was a stressful beginning. My dad died in May, my grandmother in August, and we got married and moved to Asheville, NC in September. I had a difficult time finding a job in my field and because we were young and just married, we had ZERO money so I took a job as a teller at a bank in Black Mountain, NC. I'm not knocking being a bank teller. There is not a thing wrong with that occupation. It just wasn't what I wanted to do and my life at that point was turning into a lot of not what I wanted to do.
I was MISERABLE in Asheville. Jim traveled a lot with his job and when he wasn't doing that, he was traveling to Raleigh every weekend for this study course for his Professional Engineers license. I knew absolutely no one and if you know me, you know I'm not hugely outgoing so making friends wasn't easy for me. And in the whole year we were there, I only had two visitors from home. I was very lonely. I was not nice to Jim. Looking back at it, I am amazed (well not really because he is a Godly man) that he stuck it out with me.
But he did and here we are fourteen years later- perfectly happy, never a cross word, just wonderful wedded bliss... and if you believe that well, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona. ;) Marriage is hard work. Aside from parenting which was an eye opener too, I don't think there is anything more difficult. I'm not a huge Dr. Phil fan but he made a comment on one of his shows a long time ago that has stuck with me. He said, "If young couples put as much effort into planning for the actual marriage as they did for the wedding ceremony and reception, the results might be better." You know what I mean. One minute you're dating, all happy and in love- he's opening doors for you, planning romantic dates specifically catered to your likes, hanging on your every word and you say "I do" then BAM!... you're washing his underwear, wondering how someone could spend that much money on a DVD player, and certain that your words that ring in his ears sound like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon. You get my point. :)
Its work- its compromise- its hills and valleys. And there are gonna be rough spots- some rougher than others. You pray a lot! :) You get through them- maybe not always with the grace you'd like but you get through and come out stronger on the other side. I thank the Lord every day for Him leading me to Jim. We've had our share of ups and downs, crazy differences of opinions, and heated discussions (some ending in all out yelling at the top of our lungs.) And I'm certain we will have all of that again. Had we given up at the first sign of trouble-- well lets just say that we might have rivaled Britney Spears record for the shortest marriage.
So for what its worth, here are fourteen things some funny, some serious that we've learned over the last fourteen years...

1. Jim's idea of clean is NOT the same (not even remotely close) as mine.
2. It is better for me to walk away when we have a heated discussion than to stay and say something I know will be hurtful and unfair (such a weakness of mine).
3. Jim knows that I am NOT a morning person and its NOT a good idea to talk to me before I've had a cup of coffee.
4. I know that when he has been unusually quiet there is something wrong and I also know I will have to ask numerous times with the repeated answer of "Nothing" until I finally get the reason.
5. The big tooth is an off limits topic.
6. He made it 25 years without having me have to tell him what to do and how to do it, he can make it another 25 without that too. :)
7. If I see a movie with him there will always be the risk of him cackling like a hyena at a scene NO ONE else in the entire theater thinks is funny. (And Avery has the same sense of humor)
8. I am NOT always right. (sigh)
9. He's learned that there is no right or good answer to, "Do you think I'm fat? or Have I gained weight?"
10. You do NOT toss 20 year old concert shirts- even if they are three sizes smaller than what he wears now- don't do it!
11. If I want him to be the leader of our household, spiritual and otherwise, I HAVE to step back and give him the opportunity.
12. Sometimes you have to say your sorry even when its not your fault.
13. Forgiveness means not bringing it back up again-- not even when you're angry and everything in you wants to pull up every hurtful thing for the past oh umm 14 years (yeah- another thing I'm working on and God's working on me)
14. And finally- God meant for us to be together and there isn't anything that we can't make it through together.

Happy 14th Harvey!