Happy Anniversary Blake!

Monday, May 27, 2013

This blog is about 2 weeks late, but I guess since it’s still the month of May, I’m not THAT late.  May 12, Blake and I celebrated our 6-YEAR anniversary.  It seems like the time has flown by, and has stood still all at the same time.  It’s crazy to think that we have spent ½ of our married life overseas.  This truly has been the Lord’s hand because if after our first year of marriage someone had said we would be here…we would have laughed.  The Lord took a truly impossible situation, and made it possible.  Within our first 2 years of marriage we paid off $100,000 of debt, Blake finally finished college after enrolling 10 years earlier, we sold a house we had only owned for a little more than a year, without taking a hit in a terrible housing market and we confirmed our call to missions!

None of it was easy, BUT every sacrifice we made was preparing us for something else.  Blake worked out of state 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off for the first few months of marriage, eventually a different job required him to leave early Monday mornings, and not return until late Friday nights, leading me to believe that the 2^nd year of marriage was truly going to be the most difficult.  But we made it through, and realized how important every moment we have together is!

After that season, Blake went back to school full-time and we moved in with my in-laws, and I knew THAT was going to be the most difficult time for us.  But the Lord is faithful, and he used that time to grow my relationship with my mother-in-law, and the rest of Blake’s side of the family.  After going through some hard times together as a family, we have all grown and learned to rely and lean on each other in times of hurt and heartache.  But for me, this was a time for me to learn to be open and willing to share what’s on my mind, and it was a time to prepare us as a couple for our move overseas.

We moved to Rwanda 2.5 years into our marriage and we went through some truly difficult times our first year overseas, and yet, we wouldn’t trade a single one of them!  A friend of ours put it best: “I (Lindsey) learned to talk and be open, while Blake learned to listen and sit in silence”.  It sounds kind of funny, but it’s SO true.  We truly did learn what it means for US to be a couple.  When everyone else seemed so distant and times seemed hard, we always had each other!

The next 2 years, gave us 2 additional international moves, and we had different struggles, all that seem very small now, looking back on them.  But the best thing that year 5 brought us, were some life long friendships, we didn’t expect.

PS Blake would be truly disappointed, if I didn’t post at least one of his classic poses!

And now, here we are 6 years later, doing exactly what the Lord wants us to be doing.  Living in a little town in the middle of nowhere Democratic Republic of Congo, loving everyminute of it (well almost every minute – we still miss family and friends and simpler things sometimes)!  But, the sacrifices we made to get to this point seem so small.  Like maybe they weren’t sacrifices at all.  Maybe it was all the Lord’s hand, fitting each piece of our tiny puzzle together simply and easily, because that was His PURPOSE for our marriage.

I don’t know what year six holds for us.  In my heart of hearts, I hope our little family of 2 grows, but yet, the Lord has His hand on our marriage, pushing us to be better for each other, grow in His love, and grow in our love for each other.  Happy Anniversary Blake!  I can’t wait for another 6 years!