a different sort of post

Typically the children around here provide plenty for our little family blog.  (Really I think it is pretty much just the family who reads it anyway...which was the point when we started it 5 or 6 years ago.) However I think this day does not need to go without some recognition....

10 years ago today Neal and I got married.  Actually by this time, 3:19pm, we were married, finished receptioning and were about to step off a plane.

I could go on and on about how great it has been and how special Neal is and blah, blah, blah but those of you who know me best know that is really not my style.  I have had a little different thought process today.  I will share it with you...

Besides marriage what have I stuck with for 10 years or more?
1.  An Education...16 years (counting kindergarten) but the first 13 were not an option.  Technically I only chose 4 years.
2.  Work...7 years.  Doesn't make the list
3.  Exercise...too sporadic to count more than about 2 years.
4.  Child Rearing...if you add the years spent with each child separately, 15 years.  That is cheating though because I don't have 15 years of life experience.
5.  Church Membership...14 years.  I think this counts.
6.  Relationship with Christ...26 years.  However, again technically God started this not me and realizing what I have been saved from and what I have been brought to I would be an idiot to try and terminate this but that is not really even possible so here again not sure this counts.

Unless I am overlooking something great commitment/accomplishment, here that is the list.  Astounding, I think.  Even more astounding, we barely dated 10 weeks before getting engaged!  I think it was more than 10 weeks but not much.  However there is some discrepancy on exactly when we started dating.  Some think it was earlier on and there might have been some "cheating" but seriously after one date you can't say you are dating; you can't say you are dating until the official DTR (Define the Relationship) has taken place...everyone knows that.  Sorry I got off subject a little.  Back on point, we dated a crazy short time, were engaged only 6 months but after about 3 the plans were set and I was bored so we could have made it shorter.

So what has made this marriage last 10 years...and many more to come...God's grace.  As whitty as I would like to be (and I came up with some good ones but not sure I could put them on our "family blog"...already stepped off the ledge last week by putting male body parts on it) that is the real answer.  Same as a personal relationship with him.  He started it.  It is all him; he joined us I mean the ceremony says "what God has joined together..."  So these past 10 years have not been a testimony of our actions, restraints, blah, blah, blah but of his faithfulness to us.

Oh and yes, Neal is wonderful and I am pro-marriage and it has been a blast and I am so thankful, grateful, blessed.....