{HeritageBirth} Regi {Homemaker}: Ten Years.

Ten years ago on this day, my husband and I decided to "date with the intent to marry". We looked like this back then.

Since that day, the Lord has taken us on an amazing journey together. To anyone single: Do not settle for what your eyes and emotions want. Wait for God's best for you. I didn't have to wait long. I know I'm blessed in that way. We met in high school. But if you're waiting and you are lonely, I would just encourage you in that. There is nothing better than sharing your life with someone who serves the Lord. Who will partner with you in serving Him. Scripture tells us not to be unequally yolked for a reason. As a wife called to support and submit to my husband, how difficult would that be for me if he wasn't seeking the Lord as to the direction we should take? As a man, how can you be a spiritual leader if your wife's heart is not after the Lord's? Our life together is blessed because we have surrendered it to Jesus. So, find someone who is serving the Lord in their life and I promise you, you'll be glad you waited for God's best. Our journey hasn't always been easy, but with the strength of the Lord in our marriage, we have been steadfast.

We were engaged that November, and married the following August. We looked like this then:

Our wedding was such fun. We had an amazing honeymoon on a Hawaiian cruise as well. The Lord provided for us to have a beautiful wedding on a shoestring budget. As we saw throughout our first year of marriage, the Lord is an amazing provider. Our refrigerator came from someone we knew that picked up old fridges from people when they got new ones. The Lord provided a washer and dryer that same way. We had groceries provided to us many times. I became pregnant with our first in November of that year and we had a beautiful daughter on our one year anniversary. I tell her she was our anniversary present from Jesus.

She looked like this:

This is Ballerina. She was, and still is, our pride and joy. She was a very happy and sociable little gal. Because we were so close with our church family at that time, we've often joked that she had 10 sets of parents. They say it takes a village and she certainly had one. We had tons of great support, help and love from our friends and family. It stayed the three of us for a while. Time passed, not much changed, Ballerina got older.

Shortly after Ballerina turned four, we set off on our greatest adventure yet. We moved to Japan.

The ways in which our time there changed and grew me is a whole different post, but I'll say that we grew together as a family in amazing ways that year. We learned how to lean independently on the Lord and yet support and lean on each other at the same time that year. While living there, the Lord saw fit to bless us with our second child.

Born in Japan, meet Hipster.

After his birth, we felt the Lord leading us back stateside. If your curiosity cannot be contained and you want to know all about our time in Japan, you can read about it here.

http://deanclaninjapan.wordpress.com/

He got older, tons changed. We changed our home, bought our first house, changed churches and changed lifestyles. We became more settled and homebody-ish than we ever were before. We're still adjusting and settling into our "new normal", but one thing that has never changed in all that time is my steadfast, dependable, honest, kind, intelligent, understanding, hardworking and gentle husband. He is my best friend. My companion. My confidant. My hero. I love him more each day. I am so happy with our time together. I'm so glad I married him as young as I did. After all the adventure we've had thus far, we're still young! We (Lord willing) still have so much life ahead of us to enjoy together. I'm blessed and amazed that the Lord has given me such a wonderful gift. I don't know what the next ten years will have for us, but I know that the Lord has great plans and I'm excited to discover them together.