Five years ago today. Five years ago today my handsome, hilarious husband and I realized that our separate lives would converge forever. We sat on a wall off Ocean Drive in Newport, RI sharing our life stories while shivering in the cool night air. We were supposed to have steaks with my brother that night, three days after we had first met, but instead found ourselves sharing our testimonies and life goals till after 10pm. I for one could not imagine meeting the man I was to marry three days before heading back to Thailand, but that is where the Lord led us. How did we celebrate this bold and blissful decision? Taco Bell! This was my first time ever to eat at taco bell, when I was 29 years old and making one of the biggest decisions of my life. Since then taco bell has been one of my fast food favorites! From the packets of sauce that say “Will you marry me”, to the goosh of the refried beans coming out the back end of a burrito all over my hand. Each step into a taco bell helps me recall the memory of my first taco bell experience when Barrett and I sealed our newly made promise.
Five years. Five years have passed since that day and we have been through every natural disaster except for a volcano, moved three times, gotten 3 degrees, changed jobs over five times, moved across the world, and had a beautiful baby girl. We have fought, made up, and been sanctified more times than I can count. We have been counseled and counseled others. We have said hello and goodbye to amazing friends and family. And we have said goodbye to each other for months at a time due to deployments. Yet despite the hardships and trials, we have found the Word of God to be true when it says that it is through trials and hardships that you grow in sanctification and understanding of our Lord. I can’t tell you how much my faith has deepened in the past five years. I can’t tell you how much I have seen the Lord work in Barrett’s life as well! We are not the same people we were five years ago to the glory of God!
Funny, now that I think of it I hear my dad’s voice asking me the question that he always asked visitors and family, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Huh. Good question. My mind races through scenes from the past and moves to dreams in the future. As a single science teacher in Thailand I would have never dreamed that I would now be a wife and mom in Okinawa, Japan. I praise the Lord that His plans and ways are not mine. Im so thankful that the Lord put Barrett and Annabelle in my life the way He did. I could not ask or dream for a better family.
I realize that it is Memorial Day weekend (and that we just survived our first typhoon) and I don’t want to take away the importance of all our vets and current military service members. We are so thankful for your sacrifice of time, family, and your own dreams as you serve and have served each American citizen. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for our freedom. Thank you for giving your lives.
Now I am off to celebrate all these memories with my own marine chaplain…at taco bell.