20 years. What a ride. I’m so expectant for the next 20. Hopeful even.
This month, we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Just crazy. That makes us old by some standards and still quite young by other standards. When you look back, on the whole, of moments gone by, I really wouldn’t change a thing. All the good, all the hard, all the joy, all the pain. All of it has brought us to this moment, by His divine hand.
I love our story. I love telling our story. Especially if we are together telling it. There is definitely a his view and her view to this story. And the year we met was one of the very best years of my life. I fell in love with my best friend, and we’ve walked hand-in-hand ever since.
This all begins with a guy who left everything behind to follow the Lord and pursue His work, even if it meant going half way around the world, much to his chagrin at the time. And then a girl, in grand Elizabeth Elliot style, who laid down everything to follow the Lord’s heart among the nations. Yes, she declared singleness, and moved forward with only the Lord by her side…. and this really awesome travel friend that the Lord provided!
When I answered God’s call on my life and packed up to head overseas, I met up with a sweet lady in my travels. Though we had connected on the phone, we’d never met in person, but it so happened that we were joining the same team on our new adventure. God is so good because she was one of my dearest friends during that season of life. We laughed and sang and prayed and roomed and celebrated together during that year. This friend of mine had a front row seat to our story and watched and prayed for us with each little twist and turn.
After the long and exhausting journey to our new home, she and I arrived to a desolate, old, tiny airport. As I waited in the “line” to pass through customs and passport inspection, I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the faithfulness of the Lord to bring me to this very moment in time. Overwhelmed by the unknown lying, literally, just around the corner. Overwhelmed by the strange language spoken all around me. And overwhelmed by the putrid cigarette smoke hanging in the air. There may have been a time or two that I asked the Lord if I had heard Him correctly! When we rounded the corner to “baggage claim,” my luggage never showed up. Oh, how I wish you fully understood how very loosely I use all of these terms. I wish I had pictures, but the only ones I have of these moments reside in the recesses of my mind.
In all the chaos at the airport, our supervisor came to the rescue to talk to the airline officials about luggage, help us fight through the crowd of taxi drivers, and get us settled in for the drive into the “city.” Mind you, it was somewhere around three in the morning when we arrived and completely dark outside. We arrived at an unknown apartment, on an unknown street, in an unknown land, surrounded by an unknown people. Honestly, there was way more excitement than fear. And sleep was so welcomed!
As the sun peaked over the beautiful, rugged mountains the next morning, I was completely awestruck by the beauty of the land where I had arrived. It’s majestic. The first week was a whirlwind of culture and language and people and orientation and food and tears and laughter.
Still, no luggage.
That whole week of our arrival, Jeremy was out of the country on vacation. He was the one teammate that we had yet to meet. I was scheduled to leave the capital city and head for a smaller town where I would be living and working, so I was very thankful when the call came that my luggage had been found and was on the way.
About that same time, Jeremy flew back in from vacation. Upon arrival, he noticed a “mountain of luggage” sitting in the corner. Yes, those are his exact words. He knew immediately that it belonged to an American, because local people would never travel with that much stuff. Now, I must defend myself and say that it was not a mountain of luggage. Maybe five, or six, or seven, or eight pieces of luggage. A mountain that does not make. He asked the officials whose luggage it was, and they proceeded to tell him. So much for privacy and security! He recognized my name instantly, as the team had all been preparing and praying for the arrival of new faces. And, in typical style of this place that I now called home, with one phone call, these “officials” released every single piece of my luggage to a complete stranger…on his word that he knew me and could deliver it.
Cue the musical overture here, as found in any well-told love story. He pulled up in a taxi and proceeded to unload and deliver all of my luggage. My hero. I think he would say that he knew in that exact moment that he was in trouble, and had an undeniable feeling that this was most certainly NOT the last time he would be toting this luggage fo me. I’ve since lost track of the number of times he has carried my luggage, literally all over the world.
I’m not sure that either one of us would say that we knew in an instant, but it sure didn’t take long for me to realize that my resolve to walk hand in hand with Lord, single, and ready to take on the world, had a tiny crack in its foundation. And that crack was named Jeremy.
We worked together on a smaller team, in another town. I find it impossible to describe this in words, but that small town was on the other side of those beautiful, rugged mountains and a breathtaking, winding 12 hour drive through the valleys and mountains. I headed out with some of our teammates, while Jeremy stayed behind to get some work done in the city. When he finally arrived in our small town, he took me on a tour of the city and introduced me to some of the team’s local friends. That’s all she wrote, friends. I laughed more on that tour than I’ve ever laughed. And his heart for the people shone through in every interaction. When he taught the Word that Sunday for a small group of brothers and sisters, I knew that tiny crack in my resolve was shattered into a million little pieces.
Though we didn’t really “date,” we loved on people together, visited with local families together, ate dinner often with our teammates together, took language classes together, you get the idea… though it wasn’t really spoken out loud, we both knew that we fit together really well. And thus ensued this push and pull, as we both tried to make sense of our feelings about not dating, about how we felt for one another, about the Lord’s work, about callings. Jeremy may have run away to the village a few times, where he lived and worked, away from me.
Remember that dear friend with whom I traveled, she watched the whole glorious thing unfold. Her apartment was a hub of fun when we traveled back to the capital city for meetings and breaks. That year of life and ministry and falling in love, no matter how hard I fought it, was the best year of my life. Even through culture stress, language learning, missing family, team dynamics, and the push and pull. I loved every minute of it. He was so kind and funny and loving and compassionate and full of life. Still is.
I tell people all the time that I married way above myself, and I still think it’s true today. There is much that happened in the middle of this story. Christmas, New Year’s, school, teaching, horseback riding, bus trips across borders, the Sound of Music, the best swings in the whole, wide world, bread and jam, laughter, baptisms, roasted sheep heads, peaceful days, a slower pace, a wonderful team, locals singing songs in English with hilarious accents, new life, snowy days, mountain picnics. At the end of it all, we knew. He asked me to come home and marry him.
It was a whirlwind upon arrival back in the States. We met each other’s parents at the airport for the first time. Jeremy officially asked permission from my dad to marry me, while sitting in the rocking chairs on the front porch of a Country Inn and Suites somewhere in the Atlanta area. We both drove home, separate ways, with our families, talked and planned long distance, traveled to meet and see our hometowns, and got married three months later.
December 16, 2000.
And that is how it all began.
Since that moment in time, it has rarely looked like we thought it would look. But we’ve had some great adventures. And we have four amazing kiddos. And we still laugh and cry together. And we still serve the Lord together. And he’s still my best friend.
I’m so thankful that God put us together. Only He could have orchestrated this story. Two people from very different worlds meeting on the other side of the world in a small, obscure country. But that small, obscure land, home of a people we love dearly, holds my heart. I fell deeper in love with my Savior there and met a man to love all my days, no matter where the journey takes us.
Today I rejoice in God’s goodness. He is faithful. And Jeremy is one of the greatest gifts that He has ever given me. I would never take these verses out of context, so don’t hear me saying that everything is great for His children, but I do believe that God works out His plans and purposes in our lives…through the very best days here on earth and through the darkest, difficult days.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 ESV
“Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” Lamentations 3:37-38 ESV
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:11 ESV
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV
A Thousand Little Deaths 