74,095,000 steps to a great marriage

74,095,000 Steps to a Great Marriage

The old school pic from who knows when....

Averaging 7,000 steps per day, 365 days per year, for 29 years comes to seventy four million, 95 thousand steps. That is how many steps that Tammy and I have walked together. Well, no not literally, because we have been a part some of the time but even then, we’re together. 

A little history, we didn’t marry our best friend. You’ve heard this before but its true. We sometimes envy those that marry their best friend, but that wasn’t us. Don’t misunderstand, we are best friends now but we don’t try and kid anyone that we were then. We barely knew each other. We met in September and married in February. We had spoken of marriage but hadn’t made any plans. We acted like we were married in some areas (which is how Kelcey became to be). Many told us we shouldn’t get married (maybe we shouldn’t have), told us we were too young (we really were), told us it was a mistake (maybe it was), told us we wouldn’t last (yet here we are). Of all of those people that said the previous statements, I would say the vast majority loved us and really thought that they were giving us good advice. 

Both our parents have been married for over 40 years now. Our grandparents were the same. You see, we were destined to make it. It was, and still is, in our DNA. It was the way our families did things. You get married, you stay married, you create a family that fits in the family. So here we are. 

Here we are. 29 years later we continue to add to the story; to the family. Our daughter, the aforementioned Kelcey, is married to a Godly man, Ryan, that loves Jesus and her. They created a wonderful human that they named, Bryant. They have also created two other humans, one went to be with Jesus a few years ago before we were able to meet them, and the other is scheduled to make their grand appearance this August. Our son, Jordan, is about to marry a Godly young lady, Hope, that we have already embraced as our own and we’re excited about the life that they will have together. 

It’s interesting that as time goes by and there is more and more noise in the world and in the home (Bryant) that God has helped Tammy and I to remain close. Please don’t get the wrong impression. There have been seasons of our lives together that we didn’t like each other very much. Those seasons were long and spiritually dry but they have passed for now. We fought against each other and then we fought for each other and now we try, when we fight, to fight for a resolution to what we are fighting about and if we can’t remember what we’re fighting about we just stop fighting. It’s silly and sounds nuts but it works for us. Trust me, there are nights that she wants to hold a pillow over my face while I sleep and me the same but we figure it out. Basically, we figured out that if we kill the other then we will have to go to prison and not get to see Bryant and we love Bryant too much to miss that! Check out this picture.

This is my wedding band. I wear it everywhere except at the gym and in the shower. I don’t wear it at the gym because my gym partner, Tommy, lifts heavy things and it’s uncomfortable to move his heavy weights with my ring on. I don’t wear it in the shower because I don’t want to get soap on it. But it represents our marriage. It’s beautiful but if you look close enough you will see some scars, some breaks, some pain over the years. But that isn’t the whole story. Our story, rather my story, is best summed up like this. We figure it out. Each of the 74 million steps along the way. We serve each other. We love each other. We pray for each other. And hopefully at the end of our lives on this earth together I hope I can still say what I thought about this morning while watching my wife get ready for work… When she touches my skin it tingles. When she smiles a real smile, my life is right and perfect. When she laughs, my world stops and I have to laugh with her. When she cries, I want to cry with her (but I usually just get angry at who made her cry). She still makes my world go around. And if we are able to take a few more million steps together, I pray that we can pass some of those steps along to others so they can experience the same joy. 

Happy 29^thAnniversary Tammy! I enjoyed our weekend together and pray for many more to come.