Anniversary

Today my wife and I celebrate our 16th “weeding” anniversary.  (You'll get the “weeding” if you remember the sign from our wedding. lol)

I would love to tell you that the last 16 years have been perfect. 

But…

That would be a lie.

The truth is that we have had some difficulties.  

I remember at our shower before the wedding, one older lady who was widowed, told us, “Everyone says never go to bed mad, Hell if Richard and I would have done that we would have NEVER slept,” then she laughed.

At the time I thought oh my goodness, who gives this kind of advice to someone getting married?

She was right though.  

There have been times, and I’m sure that there will be times to come, where we don't work out our differences before going to sleep.

On the other hand, there are WAY MORE times that we are excited together, happy to be with each other, soaking up every second of our kid's lives (while we have them), looking forward to the next step in life.

I think you get the point.

The highlights outweigh the struggles by far.

You know what, I wouldn't trade the struggles for anything.

Those struggles shaped us into who we are today.

When we struggled to buy food to feed our family.  Or when we cut all of our “extras” out of life. ( I mean all of our extras, we didn’t have anything except for a landline phone and only bought groceries that were necessary. No extras)

When we worked through hard times at work.  

When our daughter grew a HUGE lump in her leg and no one could figure out what it was, but it just started going away slowly.

How about when we decided to start a business?  And then a non-profit?  

These are just a few instances where we struggled together.

The key here is TOGETHER.

I would have hated to endure these alone.

We have shared so many good times, a few disagreements, and lots of struggles where we helped each other, leaned on each other.

Jenna, I wouldn't trade these last 16 years for anything.

I won’t trade whatever happens in the future for anything either.  

There is no one God has ever created that would be a better fit for me, and I am thankful that he introduced us when he did.  

For anyone out there struggling right now, I want to say hold on tight, because it's a wild ride and you are gonna want that special person there with you through it all.

Happy Anniversary Babe.  

I am thankful every day that God put us together.  

You are one tough gal to put up with me for as long as you have.

Love you, Jenna.