Our Love Story-11 Years Later

We married young; In fact, many didn’t think we would even make it. We were both 20 on our Wedding Day. Our life has never exactly been easy, but yet we have never exactly taken the easy route. I have known Brad since I was in seventh grade; WOW, hard to believe sometimes. Throughout High School we were always really good friends, but yet we both knew there was something different between us. By the end of our senior year, we had finally become an official couple just in time for the summer to arrive and Brad to leave for college. I was devastated when Brad left. It was not so much that he was leaving me to go to school; it was more that I really knew I loved this guy and I had no clue what would happen to us. I had seen him every day for so long and then he was just gone.

                I began going to a local community college where I could take theater dance, and I loved it. I was given a full paid scholarship to dance and I consumed myself with it.  Even if I didn’t have a dance class, I would spend all of my spare time in the dance studio, I LOVED IT. It truly became a huge part of my life. Between work and school, I practically lived there.

                During that first year of college, I learned to let go of Brad. I learned that God might have something or someone else in store for me. Brad and I had still been communicating off and on throughout the year, and I finally knew that I had to completely let him go. I actually sent him a letter telling him all of this and that I needed to end our friendship because it was the best for me. Not long after Brad got the letter I received a phone call from him. He told me he missed me and that he knew we were soul mates and that we were meant to be together forever.

                Brad came to visit the next weekend and every feeling I had ever had for him came rushing back….I was in love.

                …..3 months later I discovered I was pregnant, 19, and unmarried. I felt scared, alone, and if I had betrayed my family and every commitment and belief I was ever taught. For months I pushed Brad away. I knew he loved me, but I could not let a baby sway his decision to be with me. Brad started to come to every doctor’s appointment I had, and he would leave school on the weekends just to spend time with me or help me pick out stuff for the baby. Brad showed me that he loved me for me; baby or no baby.

                3 months after our daughter, Kayla Elisabeth, was born, we were married. I remember walking down the aisle thinking, “I’m 20, I have a daughter, and I am about to marry my best friend.”

                11 years later we have been through birth, miscarriage, death, trials, debt, and heartache, and yet I can’t imagine anyone I would rather have by my side. He has been my strength when I was weak. He makes me laugh when I’m angry. He has prayed for me when I was sick. He allowed me to be a Mom while he has sacrificed and supported our family for the last 11 years.

                I have a shoulder to cry on, a man to love, and most of all, someone who has seen me at my worst and yet continues to stand by my side.

                I vow now to teach young girls about purity and the importance of waiting until they are married. Our daughter is a gift from God, but our choices were not what God had planned. Life is hard, and too often we choose to complicate it even more because we choose the desires of our own heart over the will of God. I am so blessed with a man that loved me for me, and stood by me time after time throughout the difficult journeys we have faced; so often this is not the case.

                Our life has not always been easy, but we have worked hard for what we have. I admire my husband for all that he has done and sacrificed for our family, and I don’t say thank you enough.

I am proud to be among the few who married young and are still married today.

HAPPY 11^th ANNIVERSAY BRAD! I LOVE YOU!