Well, I suppose it’s time for me to get this blog up and running again! Life has a way of keeping me so very busy, but we are ever moving forward as we follow the path God has laid out for us, and I want to again take up the chronicling of this journey.
The beginning of April found my family on the road, headed toward the Midwest. It was rather a whirlwind trip, with stops in 5 states in just over two weeks. I want to write about our second stop, in Lafayette/West Lafayette, Indiana. We wanted to visit with old friends there, and to share our Togo plans with the congregation where we began our marriage. In a way, this was the highlight of our trip for me, because I was able to see how God has worked in my life.
When Ryan and I first married, he was a campus minister with Elmwood Church of Christ for the students at Purdue University. We began our married life in a tiny white house in Lafayette, Indiana with our newly adopted dog, Sheba (the crazy). Ryan served as the campus minister for the first three years of our marriage, and then we moved away to join another ministry. We have wanted to return for a visit, but it has never worked out, mainly because Indiana is off the beaten path of any of our destinations. But a few weeks ago, we finally made it back, for the first time in nine years.
It felt very strange to me at first. Everything was familiar and it seemed as if nine years had not passed at all–and yet, the three children in the backseat were evidence that indeed, not only had time passed, but many changes had occurred. I thought back to when Ryan and I began our marriage here, and it seemed as though that young wife had been another person altogether from myself.
Ryan and I had a rather rough start to our marriage. Largely, our difficulties find their root in my very difficult relationship with my father, and to my parent’s very troubled marriage (which ended the year Ryan and I married). Ryan is truly a man of patience and kindness, but I was struggling deeply, and we had a very rocky beginning.
But God is good. Just after our marriage and my move to join Ryan in Indiana, the elders at Elmwood Church of Christ came to Memphis to train to be facilitators in His Needs/Her Needs small groups. The book, His Needs/Her Needs, by Willard F. Harley, Jr., is a profoundly helpful tool for building a successful marriage, and the small groups were meant to be a supportive, encouraging atmosphere in which couples could share their struggles and successes, discuss the wisdom the book offers, and pray for each other, thus strengthening the marriages in the congregation. Ryan and I were immediately plugged into a group with some of the wisest and kindest people in the congregation.
Only God knows the struggle Ryan and I were going through. But each week in our small group, we would share a lot of it. I have never been one to hide away my troubles, and so I happened to win the prize many weeks for being the best “sharer.” I can remember crying and pouring out my fears, and the people in my group in turn offered kind encouragement and wisdom and support. Those people, that small group, were a resource God provided, that we very much needed.
And the neat thing is that when we made it back for a visit a few weeks ago, the topic for the sermon on Sunday morning happened to be marriage. Neater still, the minister asked an elder and his wife to come forward and share their wisdom and experience with the congregation–the same elder and his wife who had been the facilitators of our His Needs/Her Needs group! I was able to listen to many of the same words of encouragement and hope and help that I heard more than nine years ago, when I had so desperately needed them. I saw then how God had provided just what Ryan and I had needed at the start of our marriage. He did not take away the struggle, but in His goodness He gave us the support and resources we needed to remain obedient to Him and to grow together as a couple.
Often we don’t get to see how God is working in our lives, ”for now we see through a mirror dimly.” But on that Sunday, I was able to see face-to-face. And this fills me with hope for the future. “And my God will meet all my needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19). Yes, He has done just that, and it’s what I know without a doubt He will continue to do.
