Today is my 9th wedding anniversary.

We got married when I was 23, after a whirlwind romance and engagement. The year before, we’d just been friends and suddenly a year later we found ourselves as husband and wife. I think there is a lot of wisdom in getting married young. I’m sure everyone has their own opinions and views on it, but for us and our marriage, it gave us an opportunity to grow up together during a season of life when most people are still learning who they are as people. We probably underestimated how challenging it can be when you bring two sinners and all their sinful expectations together as one but by His grace, we’re here 9 years later and stronger than ever.

Without even going into all the myriad of ways we’ve seen God move through our marriage, and just practically speaking on a very basic, logistical level … we’ve been through a LOT.

4 years of law school and business school, living on a tight student-husband budget, a failed bar exam, a special needs diagnosis for E, countless moves, heartbreaks, fights, disappointments, physical injuries, moments of utter “I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

And we’ve also experienced so many wonderful, wonderful highs together. Graduations, first jobs, first paychecks, first HUGE pay raises (which made us feel so rich but then that was before we had a mortgage hahahaa), home ownership, beautiful pregnancy announcements, healthy baby births, career changes …

Through it all, the ups & the down, I feel so very lucky that I can still look to this man that I share a bed and home with and be able to confidently call him my best friend. He’s changed and matured in the best ways over the past 9 years; not that he wasn’t wonderful when I married him but if it’s even possible, he’s only become more wonderful with age. Those of you who know us personally know that he utterly spoils me with love and I know I’m a lucky wife to be able to call him “mine.” He’s a simple and easy husband to have and to love. He doesn’t lord his preferences over our family, always eager to yield the little matters to what I’d like to do. This makes it so much easier for me to submit to him with the “big stuff” when we butt heads … but if I’m honest, we haven’t butted heads very often in our marriage. We’ve had trials in other areas, but this hasn’t been one of them for us.

We’re finally transitioning into a season of our marriage/parenting when we’re done having little babies and newborns and I can’t wait to see how the Lord moves and uses us going forward.

*LOL, these pictures are in chronological order and it’s so funny because you can see how my face/weight fluctuates in size as I kept getting pregnant/having babies and then losing the baby weight and then having another baby, rinse, repeat.