a LOT deeper

Our first date, high school prom 2002.

I want to share a very personal story with you.

Josh and I are about to celebrate our fifth year of marriage and when baby #2 arrives in August we will have been together for 10 years. I have been reflecting recently about where we are today and all we are blessed to have and be doing with our lives.

We are truly living out our dreams.

Ultimately this also reminds me of how it all started. We are high school sweethearts.

Our first date was absolute magic. Josh asked me to prom when I was 16 and I literally ran down my street screaming. Like out of a fairytale we won prom prince & princess and everything about the night was perfect. He even asked me to be his girlfriend.

This was MAJOR as Josh (who at the time was 17) had never been on a date, had a girlfriend or even come close to holding a girl's hand before that night.

He was, in my eyes, the most attractive and amazing guy I had ever met and to both our our surprises my response was no.

My background was a lot different than his and I had been practically living with my past boyfriend & I was convinced my baggage would ruin our relationship.

Actually I was quite a wild child and the reason we ended up in the same school to begin with was because I had gotten expelled from my last one.

Coming from a divorce (like all children of divorce) I was hurting and trying anything anyone offered me to make life better.

At 13 I skipped 8th grade, left home and went to boarding school in Colorado for some freedom.

God was definitely watching over me during this time in my life because by the age of 14 I had already experimented with any drug offered, gotten alcohol poisoning twice & was not looking out for myself whatsoever. Being expelled was almost a relief as I was out of control and needed purpose and a moral compass.

I was not raised in church like he, nor given reasons as to why purity was important.

But when you fall in love with someone who has been waiting, saving themselves and views intimacy as a gift for their spouse alone- its a horrible feeling to know you have not done the same.

If you are not a Christian this all might sound quite foreign and even silly to you as I once had no idea about anything to do with God or Jesus or faith before I started attending church but hopefully you at least enjoy the background story.

Back to Josh.

He didn't give up on me and waited. By the time he asked again a few months later I was MORE than ready to say yes. Somewhere into our senior year, when I realized how serious our relationship was, I felt like it was time to share with him about the other people I had been in relationships with. It was a rough night and it took me a long time to share with him.

Shame was the strongest feeling I remember about the first part of that night.

In that moment you realize that your choices affect others and your choices matter.

Especially when you are looking into the face of someone whom you love and seeing the pain that you have caused.

He is a very strong person but when I finished talking he was quiet and visibly hurt.

It hurt him that he had valued something so much that I had easily (even without much thought) given away.

I told him I completely understood if he wanted to break up and with tears in his eyes he told me that nothing I could do or did would make him love me less.

The love and grace Josh showed me that night was a perfect picture of how God will accept us if we choose to allow Him into our lives- baggage and all.

So 10 years later here we are-

We can proudly say we saved ourselves for our wedding night.

In these days that is an out of date, "impossible", unpractical and archaic concept.

But to us it meant something & fostered a deep amount of trust and respect for each other that I know benefits our marriage even today.

Needless to say I share this to brag on what an awesome husband I have, let the single ladies know there are gentlemen out there in this world & to let everyone else know that they matter and so do the choices they make.

K