Archive: Our Anniversary...4 Lessons

This blog was written on the eve of my fourth anniversary to Paul. Two and a half years later...it still makes sense. :)


May 31, 2006
Our anniversary...4 lessons

Tomorrow, June 1st, will be our 4th anniversary. I can still remember all of those feelings from that day. I remember staying up until 4 in the morning the night before talking to my friend, Sadee, and packing for our honeymoon. And because of that late night, I actually slept in on my wedding day! Well, til 9:30, but that was definitely later than I meant to wake up. Much to my surprise, I was not the slightest bit nervous. I knew I was ready for the step Paul and I were about to take. I remember feeling soooo pretty in my wedding dress. It was a feeling I'm sure no other dress will give me in my life. I loved how Evelynn, our little flower girl, looked at me like I was Cinderella. Then again, it was pretty hard to steal the show from Evelynn.

Paul and I agreed to see each other before the wedding, but we went into a room by ourselves for our "unveiling". We teared up as soon as we saw each other. Ironically, we had the same gifts to give each other. My sophomore year of high school, I had started keeping a journal to my future husband. It was just a way for me to keep in perspective that in the midst of teenage dating relationships, I was truly waiting for who God had chosen for me, nameless though he was at the time. Well, when Paul and I were close friends for a year or so before we dated, I told him that I was keeping that journal to give to my husband on our wedding day. He thought that was a great idea, and immediately started writing a journal to his future wife, not knowing at the time that we would be giving those journals to each other! It was a sweet moment for both of us.

I would say in these four years of marriage that have flown by so fast, I have learned many things. For brevity's sake, however, I am going to spout off four lessons I have learned....one for each year of wedded bliss. Awwwwww.

1. Even when we had no clue where we were going in life, which pretty much summed up our first year and a half, we trusted God. We started out in Louisville while Paul was in seminary, then thought we were moving to Dayton, OH (which thank God did not work out), then that we were staying in Louisville, then spent a whole summer in Virginia Beach, then ended up in Muncie, IN. For several months there, we really didn't know what God was doing with us, and things were looking pretty bleak. But we hooked arms and said it would all work out, and it did. We committed to make God our firm foundation in our marriage, and I will never turn back from that.

2. Laugh a lot. I still remember one of our friends asking Paul how married life was when we were only a couple months in, and he said, "Well, we sure laugh a lot." I still carry that with me. It is impossible to live with Paul and not laugh a lot. I mean, a lot. Well, sometimes I try really hard not to laugh, but I always do. When our first year of marriage was just scraping by month to month, and I felt like crying a lot in pity for myself that we had nothing, he would make me laugh and I knew I could hang in there.

3. Believe the best in your spouse. Now, I am still learning this lesson every day. When every sitcom on tv has a wife nagging her husband, and he is always made to look like the stupid one, I believe it is so important to look for the best qualities in your mate. For me, Paul is our leader. He is trustworthy. He makes me laugh. He is so kind. He really, really loves me. He is an overcomer. He is a dreamer, and I like that.

4. Lord, change me. When something just gets under my skin about Paul, and that will definitely happen when married to someone, I have to remind myself that there are things about me that need to be changed. When I want to pray, "God, just change _______ about Paul" I have to ask what God wants to change in me first. I think Paul is much better at ignoring my faults than I am at ignoring his, and therefore, I have many lessons left to learn.

I love being married to Paul Cooper. I absolutely cannot imagine my life any other way, nor do I try. Paul and I were meant to be husband and wife. God had our days ordained before one of them ever came to be. It has been four wonderful years, and I am excited to know it is just the beginning for the Cooper family!