Thirty four.

34 years with this guy. And what a 34 years it has been! We have walked through times of good, bad and also some ugly. I look back now over these years and all that we have learned and are still learning and I see the grace and mercy of God all over our lives.

God said that marriage would make us one. And I now know why. You can’t survive trying to do it separately, fighting for your own way. (We’ve done that some too!) God wants us to be one, together, on the same page, the best of friends, yep…ride or die. The together that means no matter what we are going through to fight through it, love through it, cry through it, and most of all pray through it.

Our wedding ceremony was one for the books. Let’s see…it came a blizzard of the decade, hardly anyone could get to the church, the photographer turned around half way there and went home, my Uncle graciously agreed to help and during the ceremony his “wig” might have almost come off, the silk flowers at the reception caught on fire, the preacher when calling us to the unity candle, instead of saying Jack and Patti, said Jack and Daniel (my husband’s middle name) and instead of holy wedlock, said “holy headlock”. LOL! I’m not kidding. Can you believe we still got married??

There have been some holy headlocks in 34 years (lol) for sure! But God has shown us mercy in our failings. And we have also learned to show each other mercy.

This marriage has been the greatest blessing in my life and has brought us many years of raising beautiful children and building a home. And this marriage faced great challenges like a leukemia diagnosis at 30 years old. We have learned as we went along and we are still learning. God doesn’t promise a perfect marriage or an easy life, but He does promise to walk with you. And He has.

Here’s to the next chapter with grandbabies, a growing family, leaning on God and seeing where he takes us. And hopefully a lot fewer holy headlocks.