Our Love Story

We may be celebrating fifteen years of marriage, but it still feels fresh in my mind. I have recollected it many times, still sweet memories. I believe that God has ordained for certain people to be together. I never would have dreamed it would have happened the way it did.

It all started in May of 1998. Home from college for the summer, I was working as a bank teller in the local town. Monroe had just graduated from college and was also working for the summer as a bank courier while he was going through the hiring process for a job with the fire department. I was dating someone at the time, and it never occurred to me that I might meet someone while working at the bank. One day, out of the blue, Monroe came over to where I was working and informed me that he had tried calling me the night before. Puzzled to how he might get my phone number, he said that he had called someone from the phone book that shared my last name. He said it seemed a lot easier just to ask me for my number rather than to go through that again. Completely surprised, I gave him my family's home number. When he called me later that week and asked me out, I told him that I was dating someone. He said that he understood, and we still enjoyed a nice conversation. He called me a couple of other times that summer, and, of course, we still saw each other in passing at the bank. As the summer drew to an end, he told me that if I was ever available for a date he would be glad to take me out. I did not tell him that I had ended the other dating relationship. I was not ready to date anyone at that time.

I went off to college at a different university and tried to find my place as a transfer student. I played intramural volleyball and tried to join a couple of different organizations on campus. One night as I was just about to leave my apartment for a volleyball game, the phone rang. When I answered the call, I knew instantly who was on the other end. What I did not know was how he got my phone number this time. Ironically, he had called my dad asking about me and how I was doing and had ended up getting permission (and a number) to call me. I did not have much time to talk but told him that he could call again. A week later, he called me again, this time a little earlier, and we talked until I had to leave for my volleyball game. Several weeks went by, and we began talking a couple of times a week. Thanksgiving was coming up, and I would be coming home. He asked me if he could take me out that weekend. Our first date was on Friday, November 27, 1998, the day after Thanksgiving. He took me to see the Disney movie A Bug's Life, and then we dined at an all-you-can-eat buffet. From the very beginning, it was like he knew the way to my heart.

I came home again the week after Thanksgiving because he had gotten tickets to see The Nutcracker ballet. On our third date, after I was home again for Christmas break, we celebrated the end of my semester with blizzards from Dairy Queen. We enjoyed seeing the New Year in together that year, and at that point we decided that we wanted to "officially" declare that we were in a relationship. I had enjoyed meeting his family and some of his friends during the holidays, and I told him that I would try to come home more often during that spring semester. He was always so thoughtful, sending me things in the mail, once driving three hours after work just to eat dinner with me and then driving back that night in order to be at work the next day. Our long distance bills started to add up a little more each month. In April of 1999, he bought me my first cell phone. It was only to be used for emergencies when I was driving back and forth on the weekends from college. However, it was not unusual for him to call me several times just to check on me.

I came back home in May, ready to work again at the bank for my last summer in college. By this time, our co-workers figured out that we were dating. One older lady that I worked closely with said this about him when she found out we were dating, "He is true blue." She meant that he was the real deal, a man who was honorable in his intentions, consistent and hard-working, and of a good reputation. Monroe was a man unlike any I had ever met before.

One night, we were eating at a pizza restaurant after work. He told me that he had completed all the qualifying tests to be hired by the fire department. He explained to me that, though he had a degree in economics, he wanted to work for the fire department primarily because of the work schedule. The normal work schedule for departments in this area is a 24-hour shift followed by a 48-hour time off. Monroe wanted to be around and available often to spend time with the family that he hoped to have one day. His priority was not about looking for where he could make the most money. He wanted time with the people he loved the most. He had two departments that were ready to hire him, and he needed to make a decision about where to go. One was local, and the other was about an hour away. There were several factors that would play into his decision. As we considered all different benefits and drawbacks of each location, I mentioned to him that if I were going to be his wife, I thought the benefits of the larger one outweighed the local one. I remember how surprised he looked that I would mention something that serious about our future.

In June of that year, Monroe began working for the fire department. We still tried to see each other as much as we could with our work schedules. By August, before I went back to school, we had discussed marriage more often and more seriously. When I went back to school that year, I planned all my classes for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays so that I could come home nearly every weekend. We went shopping for engagement rings and started saving some money for our future together. One week after the year anniversary of our first date, he proposed to me beside the fireplace in his family's home. Our engagement would be a short six months. I would finish school, and his work schedule would allow him time off the following June. It was absolutely a thrilling time, planning a wedding, finishing school, finding a job for me after graduation, spending as much time together as we could, talking and dreaming.

I thought our wedding was perfect, classic and elegant. It did not occur to me to be nervous until after the wedding when we were about to leave the church. In fact, we left and then turned to one another and both wondered what we had done! There were a few tears of relief shed that evening as the reality of the moment finally started to sink in.

The first year we were married was nearly magical. We were so in love and learned to live together so easily. For the first year, we lived in the city where we both worked. After a year, I changed jobs, and we moved back to our hometown. He would commute once every three days to his job for a 24-hour shift. I hated when he was gone and looked forward to his return. We were steadily learning the "ins and outs" of making our marriage. There were some rougher moments, and some beautiful times. We planned our home and saw our house being built on family land. In 2004, we became parents to our little Grace. I became a stay-at-home mom, and our little family spent much time together.

In 2006, we weathered the hardest point of our marriage to date. We navigated through the uncharted path of losing his dad, his best friend. It was completely unexpected, and the times that followed were tense. I did not understand the depth of his pain. I did not support him as he needed through the months that followed. There were work issues; we found out that we were pregnant with Clark, and we were still grieving. When we did not know which way to go next, we knew that the only thing that we could do was love each other through this. We knew that God wanted us together, and that we must fight for that instead of fighting each other. One afternoon, after Clark was born, we had an argument that was a real turning point in our marriage. We found a point of agreement, and it was like we finally "heard" each other. Literally, from that moment on, we began to support and encourage one another more and more. We found ourselves growing up and working toward the same goals again. That was eight years ago, and every year is now better than the last. God helped us to stay together even when everything around us seem to be falling apart. I have heard it said that when you leave a cold, winter season of marriage, the springtime that follows is a sweet period of growth and beauty. Our love has blossomed and thrived since that very hard time.

The list of things that I am thankful for in our marriage is a long one. Somewhere near the top of the list is a beautiful picture of God's love and forgiveness. I have not been an easy person to live with. I have been selfish and inconsiderate, insensitive to the needs and wants of my husband, prone to speaking out of anger, and acting out of disappointment. He could hold many things against me. But, he does not. Instead, he has became for me a picture of Christ working on earth. Monroe has forgiven me; he offers me his love and his grace. Monroe does for me within our marriage what Christ has done for me through His death and resurrection. Monroe, acting in both love and truth, corrects me when I am wrong, sometimes gently and sometimes working through my stubbornness and pride. I am a wife who has been forgiven for much. I remember this daily and want to spend the rest of my life showing Monroe my love and gratitude, remembering how he first loved me and then forgave me.

God sent Jesus to this earth to show us how to love each other and how to forgive. Jesus gave up everything for me, dying on my behalf, and standing in my place of punishment for the sins I commit. Before I knew Him, He loved me. When I asked Him, He forgave me. I am eternally grateful to my Savior because I know how bad I am. The fact that He would do all of this for me continues to astound me daily. I never want to forget what He has done. I am the one who has been forgiven much and now loves much. I could spend the rest of my life trying to repay Jesus for what He has done and still never come close.

Made and sustained by God alone, we have journeyed together these years, and I am forever indebted to the Maker of marriage and to the one He has given to me.

Ephesians 5:25-33 NIV

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church-for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

#marriage #forgiveness #love