First of all, I legitimately cannot believe that I am sitting down to write our first anniversary blog post. How has it been a year already since that precious day?! I mean, I thought that dating and being engaged went by fast… one second, I was on a date at a pumpkin patch on a freezing November afternoon with a cute guy I knew, the next, I was speechless as I watched my boyfriend get down on one knee at the same place where we had our official first date. (I was also very thankful I’d randomly had my nails done that afternoon, but that’s beside the point ;)) The next thing I knew, I was walking up to my fiancé for our first look, wearing the dress of my dreams on the most gorgeous June afternoon. Now, I’m sitting in our first little home together, looking back on the year we’ve had and the memories we’ve made and the life we’ve started to build together. It’s enough to bring tears to my eyes… and I still have that “pinch-me-I’m-his-wife?!” feeling every day.
I’m not going to try to explain everything that being married for a year has taught me or taught us. There’s simply too much! However, I will share that the biggest thing being married has taught me is that God’s love for us is infinitely greater than we could’ve ever possibly imagined. It’s incredible. Marriage, truly, is designed to teach us about God, because marriage is the most beautiful picture and representation of the Gospel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve deserved anything BUT grace over this first year of marriage, and Luke has just looked at me with love and forgiven me and extended that undeserved grace to me. Being married has shown me the extent of God’s love in ways I never imagined… the fact that we see each other’s flaws, imperfections, successes, triumphs, sorrows, celebrations… EVERYTHING, and we still love each other, is such a beautiful parallel of Jesus’ love for us. And the more I’ve realized this and seen this lived out despite Luke and I being two broken people who promised to spend forever together, the more I’ve realized how deeply God loves us. If Luke and I can love each other, despite our failings and weaknesses, accepting the good and the bad, how much more does God love us? My goodness. Marriage has been incredible, and it’s shown both of us how broken we are… but marriage has also shown both of us how loved we are, both by one another and by the Lord. I’m thankful for that.
When we got married last year, a lot of things were different! We started out in a little home that is not the one we’re in now, we were both still in college back then, and we had just taken the leap to go full time with our business. When I think back to who we were just a year ago, it makes me smile, because we have changed a lot as people since then. We’ve traveled a ton, we’ve grown our business a lot- ONLY by God’s grace, we’ve spent time with old friends and made amazing new ones, we’ve hung out with each other’s families a lot, we’ve worked really hard, and we’ve loved it.
I’ve talked before how our first year was nothing like what I expected, and I’m so glad. People say all sorts of crazy things when you’re engaged about what your first year will be like, and I’m thankful that almost none of them were true for us 😉 Was it always easy? Nope. Was it always fun? Not in the moment. But did we always want to put in the work to grow, strengthen our marriage and love each other better? Yeah, we truly did… and we pray so much that that desire never changes.
As we kick off this second year being husband and wife, it’s my prayer that we’ll continue to push each other to look more like Jesus on a daily basis, encourage one another on our hardest days, and celebrate like crazy when life is going awesome. I hope we never forget that ice cream CAN count as a meal every once in a while- even when you’re not in college anymore. 😉 I hope we continue to laugh and be best friends, pull over to take pictures together when we see a pretty sunset, and that we never lose our spontaneity- even when life gets even busier than it already is. I see many more random Chick-fil-A dates, wedding days side by side, travels to new places, and our friendship deepening, ahead in year two… and we can’t wait to see what adventures come our way this year. We’re praising Jesus for an amazing first year of forever, and we’re praying for fifty plus more to come!! ????
Photo of us by Jessica Lauren Photography
