August 10,2011 (longest post, make time for this) Aim High and Do Something Amazing ... says the United States Air Force

The art of growing up…

It has been 11 months, 2 days, 29,116,800 seconds, 485,280 minutes, 8088 hours, or 48 weeks (rounded down)… since the day occurred. It was your mom, you, and myself sitting down and eating dinner, you know this story is a story I’ll tell my own children… our own children… this story will never ever leave my mind. It was the first night you’d ever cooked for me. You prepared bruschetta Italian dressing chicken, (accidentally overly salty) potatoes, and salad… I remember sometime during dinner we’d talked about our future… and your future job possibilities. Your potential, your goals, dreams, successes, and hopes… Somehow we’d discussed you working with children… troubled families and helping children become better people, perhaps juvenile detention centers or juvenile justice… I offered police force, and your mom and you both agreed, you’d never be able to kill a human, so that’d never work.

At the time your mom was dating a post marine, and somehow… we’d got onto perhaps serving to help and talk with those who have fought for our country... Perhaps, The National Guard (through careful consideration, we decided the Air Force was the best option). Working with men, fathers, husbands, cousins, sons, brothers, and friends through their strife, grief, and troubles after serving for America… we threw around the pros and cons. Entering as Active duty, or entering as a Reserve… I remember your mom walking upstairs after dinner and leaving us alone to talk. It was another first for the both of us. We muted the television, sat on the couch… and cried together. In one moment, one dinner… our lives changed. We made a promise months before that one day we’d share our futures together… and on this day we’d changed the promise to share our futures… not only together, but together in and out of possible deployments, moving, stress, bad health insurance, distance, basic training, holidays away from one another, and our families, our children being referred to as “brats” before conceiving them… My world changed.

                

            Anyone who truly knows me, knows I’m a control freak. I am utterly obsessed with having control and a grasp of my whereabouts and functions. I like direction, organization, plans, and ideas… that support mine of course… this idea was quite foreign, I’d had a best friend who’d done the whole “Army Basic Training” thing … and he had just come home literally two days before Drew and I’s re-acquaintance prior to the beginning of our relationship had occurred. I was hesitant, nervous, sad… scared, anxious… I was a mixture… was the girl who knew all and said all, finally dumbfounded and speechless? Yes. Humbly I accept that answer as I swallow my gut instincts to shun the idea, and grasp the idea of being a godly future wife. Supporting my future husbands in the endeavors of his dreams whether to San Antonio or Iraq… I was going to support him...

                          

Ephesians 5:22-24

 22  Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. 23 The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. 24  So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

            Drew was making a decision to help him, help men and women in this country… He was not only going to be personally rewarded by his fruitful gifts as a social worker towards this man, though he’d be supporting his family by doing so… and this goal was potentially reachable to him at the age of 20. There were hurdles of course, the ASVAB test, the weight requirements, the recruiter, the job need… so many bricks in the way… at that point, I felt this to be impossible. I felt this dream was unreachable, that night I received no sleep… I went home, talked to him for about 4 hours, hung up… and within the next 12 hours I’d contacted each of my best friends in tears about if I made a mistake for supporting him, and being okay with this, I’d goggled until my fingers were numb and my cuticles lifted. I read more that night than I did in preparation of my SAT’s, whose material was found in a study guide was a four-inch study guide textbook.

                       

So what did I do? I prayed, to be honest.. I prayed for everything, I prayed for clarity in god’s word for Drew’s life choices… “God, if this is not what you want Drew to do, and you truly want him to be the leader in my life, for my future family, in my household… please rear him away from this idea sooner than later, and if it is and for some earthy reason this does not work out, we will not hold anything against you, we know all things are possible because of you and your son Jesus Christ. We are so thankful for putting us together, we are so thankful for you being such an awesome god… and in case for whatever reason you give us other things for Drew and I to conquer we are prepared and welcome all new experiences and opportunities with open hands. We can do everything through your strength and blessing… but lease give us the peace of mind to remind us you are walking with us through this decision…” I mean, this happened nightly. We’d have nights where we’d get into small arguments about not seeing one another more than 4 times in a week or not talking to each other for more than 3 hours in a day, not calling one another on our free times, or on our way homes…. Prioritizing friend time over relationship time… I mean we spent more time together in our first year than we probably will ever married… until our retirement. I am so thankful for those moments… I mean, we accomplished a lot, I have 30lbs of scrapbook and countless Joanns & Michaels receipts to prove it…. But god did all of this for a reason, he wanted us to cherish the time we spent with one another, he had other things in mind.

                         

Hebrews 10:25 
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching

So let’s fast forward to today, what goes on in the life of Drew and Capri… what keeps them busy, what do they do… how on earth are they “that serious” and still waiting until marriage? How do they occupy their time, and how effective is their plan?

Simply said? It isn’t simple… God is what keeps us afloat. God is our number one priority, he comes before everything and everyone. We are each other’s second priorities… we equal one another out as our families, we come first, as do our families… Drew’s family precedes my friend’s importance and vice versa. Friends, work, so on and so forth. We volunteer as much as we breathe… Monday’s and Sundays are our scheduled and mandatory days for giving back to God the blessings that have been given to us, as a couple and a future family.. we see our lives being enriched by showering the people we love with love, so by loving our church, and community with our church, and volunteering at the grief center every other Monday, we are able to show others love in ways God has shown us he’s loved us…

 

As for work... Drew is currently still chasing his Air Force goal and dreams, working out to lose his last few pounds, studying for his ASVAB test, and will be studying at UNLV this fall… in addition to holding down two jobs which run him practically thin, I never hear him complain. I am in such awe of his determination. Love is when the apprehension and worry you had 11 months ago about the man in your life working so hard you barely saw him becomes absent when he works over 40 hours a week and you spoke more to him when he still lived out of state and you aren’t worried at all… My man is in God’s hands, this is what matters most to me. I’m still anxiously chasing my bachelor’s degree while working in traffic safety in our ridiculously unsafe city… Dreaming of the future God will place before us and patiently waiting to watch the miracles reveal themselves.

                     

All in all, most people count the first day you first established a relationship your “Anniversary”… though we do as well… I think people don’t count the ah-ha moment’s in their relationships and keep track of the progress since the bang-up and hang-ups. Let me please reassure you… we are so far from perfect our Halo’s are crooked and our wings are broken. We are Christians under construction and happily accept that title… but as far as our kind of love, we still do not see the need to support each other physically to support one another mentally… and the strength of our communication, the blessing of our understanding, the power of our patience, the support from our friends and families, the rewards we give each other daily by the gift of our presences in each other’s lives far exceed any material gift we ever would’ve received from anyone…from the bottom of my heart, Thank you god for August 10, 2011… we’ve grown so much since that day, and I will be forever grateful for it.