Eighteen Years

Photo credit: John Herzig

If I had to choose between the Ralph and Courtney on July 7, 2007 or the Ralph and Courtney today, I wouldn't take more than a split second to choose us today. I'll take the gray hair and wrinkles. There's no way I'd want to go back to who we were then.

"Healthy things grow and growing things change" is what one of our pastor's, Don Cousins says. It is so well put. I would be concerned if I were to reflect on who Ralph and I were eighteen years ago on July 7, 2007, and not see a dramatic change.

What hasn't changed is our commitment and faithfulness to each other. That day I confidently walked down the aisle with my eyes locked into his. I didn't want to see anyone else. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the man that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Photo credit: John Herzig

Ralph and I made a choice that day to stay true to what our vows said: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. "Divorce is not an option" has been our mentality from day one. Just like I say often to mom's that "motherhood is easy to start well, but not to finish," marriage is the same way.

Ralph and I come from divorced families. Ralph's parents separated when he was in elementary school, mine when I was fifteen, and again within the first year of our marriage. The emotional pain is hard to describe. The impact those divorces have made on us still to this day....The broken pieces we have had to pick up for each other...

Photo taken by our twelve year old, Liam

No one intends to divorce. They just feel as though there is no other way to fix it. Staying committed through the physical, mental, and spiritual lows is not easy, and that's putting it simply. But, if you wait. Oh, if you can just wait...

If you can just trust. Trust that God is sovereign. That He sees you in your deepest moments of despair.

If you can just surrender your every emotion, as real and justified as some of them might be...

If you could just have faith that God can restore what's been broken, but in His timing, not yours.

There is a reward for those that wait.

I know there are exceptions. Please do not think I am being insensitive or that I am telling anyone to remain in a verbal or physically abusive situation. I do, however believe that God is capable of fully restoring any marriage that has even one willing participant in it. One that chooses to die to themselves, surrender their spouse, and have a softened heart to change, even if they don't see themselves as the problem.

Photo taken by our twelve year old, Liam.

Someday, in God's timing, I will release our story. Many new things have transpired since I first started writing my book. I am holding it all very loosely, wanting nothing, but God to have His way through it.

Lastly, as I so often emphasize, our faith in Jesus is ultimately why we are still together. It is impossible to wait, trust, surrender, or forgive over and over and over and over again without Him. The fact that we aren't who we were on July 7, 2007 and how our marriage has remained steady for eighteen years, is a testament to His work in us. He gets all the glory and admiration.