25 Years of Wedded Blessings

19 and 22.

That’s how old Jacqui and I were when we got married (click to enlarge the picture).

We met at 13 and 16.  I was friends with Jacqui’s older sister, Sylke.  One day some friends and I went to pick up Sylk to go to the beach. Heidi (my not yet mother-in-law) said Sylk could go to the beach but Jack had to come along as well.  Problem: no room in the car.  Solution: Jacqui had to sit on my lap: awkward!  I remember thinking, “she’s really cute but really young.”  We’d end up dating a bit in high school – until she blew me off on Christmas Eve (some silly excuse that the winter travel advisory which had closed down the roads made it dangerous/impossible to travel).  We’d not see each other for a few years, until one of my buddies, Greg, started dating Sylke and we all ended up going to Blossom Music Center for Amy Grant’s first cross-over concert (I think she opened for Chicago – Chicago 17 had just been released).  I didn’t know Jacqui was going to be there.  I’d not seen Jack for a few years.  By the end of the concert we had a date.  Within 7 months we’d be married.

Hard to believe that 25 years have passed.  And, it’s been an adventure.  We’ve had 4 sons, a daughter-in-law and now a grandson on the way.  We’ve moved 7 times and have lived in various areas throughout Northeast Ohio, Alexandria, Virginia and now the lowcountry (by far the best).  My father, our grandparents, beloved aunts and uncles and a cousin have died.  I’ve been to grad school and Jacqui’s completed nursing school.

I remember when I spoke to Bill (my father-in-law) about marrying his daughter and he asked me about how I would support her.  I pulled out a pocket full of cash, put it on the table, and said “that’s all the money I have in the world.  We’re counting on God to show up.”  I don’t imagine that was much comfort. But God has indeed shown up – many times over.

It’s really something to marry a girl you literally grew up with.  When I’m with her I don’t just see the woman she’s become, I remember the teenager sitting on my lap.  The young woman giving birth.  My wife, and my friend, who held me in the middle of the night when I learned that my dad died.  I also remember the boy I was.  I remember preaching, as a teenager, at a Diocesan Youth Convention and giving an altar call and having so many of our friends come forward to receive Christ.  I remember summers at the beach and at Cedar Hills (the Diocesan Conference Center where I lived and was on staff from 19-22).  I remember riding a motorcycle 55 miles through a December snow-storm just to see her at Kent State.  I remember a very pathetic proposal (I was REALLY nervous) and how amazed I was, and am, that she said, “yes.”

Happy Anniversary, Wifey.  I love us.