Fifteen years ago today, I married my best friend.  It was around ten degrees outside but the sun was shining.  It didn’t matter what the temperature was.  I was beginning my life with the person that God had chosen to be my husband!

Jason and I met in high school in Norfolk, Nebraska.  The short version of the story is that I called to invite him to homecoming (I had to since we attended two different schools).  We were both seniors and despite my Mother’s disappointment that I would actually call a boy, I went to homecoming with the guy that, yes, I asked out on a date.  Jason would embellish the story much more than that but he’s not writing this blog so that’s all you get!  From the beginning, we were determined to make it work.

Our dating lasted through our senior year in high school and four years of college.  It wasn’t easy.  At one point, Jason was in college in South Dakota and I was in Omaha, Nebraska at Creighton University.  My Christmas present that year was his transfer letter to the University of Nebraska in Omaha.  I can remember it like it was yesterday—it was only a couple of years ago, right?!  We would attend church every once in a while at the church on the campus of Creighton University.  However, as I look back I know God had his hand in our relationship from the very beginning, but we were reluctant to let Him to be in the driver’s seat.

So back to that cold day in January in 1994--I wouldn’t have changed a thing about our wedding (okay, maybe the puffy sleeves on my wedding dress were a little much!).  As I think through all that has happened in these fifteen years, I am overwhelmed.  In fifteen years we have been through several job changes including a corporate bankruptcy.  We have become parents, homeowners, and christians.  We witnessed nieces and nephews being born and my parents dying.  Throughout all of it, my husband has been my rock.  He has always been there to hold me up, hold me accountable, and hold my hand.  I can’t possibly thank God enough for bringing Jason into my life when I was 17!

I don’t know what God has in store for us over these next fifteen years.  It is hard to imagine what our lives will look like (Halle would be 20 years old!).  I would never have guessed we would be celebrating our 15^th wedding anniversary in our home in Peoria, Arizona and that I would be the mom of 3 kids working part-time in our church office but really wonderful things do happen when God is in control.