Scribe's Landing . . . Writing To Encourage

Four Years and Counting!

It's odd to me the things we remember and the point of juncture we remember them. This past week I celebrated my fourth anniversary of marriage to my husband, whom, I can honestly say I love more today than I did when I married him four years ago. Realistically I don’t believe I had any idea of the gift I was receiving four years ago and therefore did not really know how to value it. And, I might add, I’m still a work in progress in that arena!

Four years seems like a milestone to me as I look back and reflect on all the Lord has done and brought my husband and I through, some of which has been pretty difficult. As I reflect on all of this, I am also reminded of the chance meeting I had with a sweet lady named Sarah Hemingway years before I even met my husband – and yes, she was a distant relative of Ernest Hemingway which thrilled the English-loving, literature-crazy side of me! When I remember Sarah, I remember a warm-hearted, free-spirited lady who had just lost her husband but yet who graciously opened her home up to me, a perfect stranger. If memory serves me correctly, his loss had been unexpected because the home she was living in had been newly built with the anticipation that they would retire in it and entertain together. As if it were yesterday, I can still picture our afternoon of strawberry picking together and strolling through the open markets in South Carolina. I was young, naive, and hopelessly in love. I was also eagerly engaged to a man that today is not my husband. Sarah and I talked for hours about everything under the sun, including marriage, her husband, and what it meant to be a wife who loved the Lord. I also learned from her invaluable insight into loving a man and cherishing him. Of course at that time I soaked it up with the excitement of one who was about to embark on the journey herself and needless to say, I didn't really take it all in as I should have.

Remembering my time with Sarah has many ironies to me today - especially because at that time I simply could not imagine anything going wrong in my relationship or life being any different than it was then – seemingly perfect. Little did I know that later that month I would receive the news from my fiance’ that he no longer loved me or desired marriage. Our engagement crashed so hard and unexpectedly that a floodgate of grief overcame me and it was paralyzing. It was the death of so many things. To this day, I still don’t talk about what happened much or what it was like going through it because it was too painful, too humiliating, too beyond anything I ever anticipated. Simply stated, it remains a circumstance that I have had to give over to the Lord even in my failure to comprehend why it all happened. All I know is that God had a better plan and I’m living it today. What I take from Sarah and all that she shared with me then was that love is so much more than a feeling – it’s something that never fails. Love to the core is absolutely selfless. My circumstance shortly after my time with Sarah was one of humbling and refinement. Through it I learned to love the Lord with a passion and ferocity that today has allowed me to love my husband in a way I could never have dreamed of then and mind you - I did a lot of dreaming! I’m so very thankful for her, even if at the time I did not really hear everything she was trying to tell me or value her words as I do now. Today I understand them so much better as they play out in my own marriage. It’s a daily process that I hope I am learning to not take for granted!