19 Months & Thankful...!

I am very thankful for our 19 months of marriage today!  I'm thankful that God is gracious enough to have given us a great love story to share with our child(ren).  Not only did He redeem me from the past I came from, which I had to share with Tom before marriage and will most likely have to share with my child(ren) someday, but He kept Tom all those single years of his just for me!  And because of God's grace and our determination to stay steadfast for God and trust Him for our future, we have no regrets in our relationship to the extent of silliness I am sure to most people out there!  We chose not to hold hands or say the words "I Love You" until we got engaged 5 months into our dating relationship!  And we chose not to kiss until, that is right, our Wedding Day, 7 months after engagement.  Which by the way was Tom's first kiss!  I share these things not to boast, because like I said in the worlds eyes and even in the eyes of some other believers, that is silly!  But I am sharing because I am thankful for that history between Tom and I that we can share with our child(ren) as he (they) grows up and we do our best to teach him (them) to make wise choices for God.  So, that he (they) too will not carry into his (their) marriage any regrets between his (their) spouse and him(them)self(ves).  And honestly in a certain way I am thankful for the history I do have apart from Tom because that too is useful to God in teaching and training our child(ren).  In a way of sharing that this is what happens when you choose not to honor God with your body, mind and emotions before marriage and these are the feelings you will regret all your life and will regret having to share that with your future spouse and your own children.

Someone said to me and a friend the other day when talking about having kids "My (live-in boyfriend) doesn't have to marry me to 'prove' his love for me in order for me to have his children!"  I have been thinking about that statement since then because of course it bothers me, but just thinking about it in light of today too.  A commitment isn't about 'proving' your love, it's about saying "I Do".  I Do want to honor God and the design He has laid out in His Word for an intimate relationship between a man and a woman.  I Do want to honor you as a person who loves God and be an encouragement in your relationship with Him, not the person who leads you down the wrong path away from God.  I Do want to produce a Godly legacy with you AND for our children to feel secure that they have a committed father AND mother.  I Do want to mirror God's image to the world in our relationship of His perfect love, commitment, forgiveness and unity He desires with us.  I Do believe we mutually complete each other and I believe you as a person are worth making a commitment to.  I Do want to let the world know that I am a committed person to one other person by the outward symbol of a ring.  And I am sure I could come up with more reasons if I wasn't holding a crawling monkey child right now ;)

Our first kiss! I love the smirk on Daisy's face, all the girls in bridal party blew their party whistles and the guys in bridal party got out their cell phone cameras as we enjoyed our first kiss!