On this date 10 years ago Dave officially asked me to be his girlfriend at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis, MD.  So much has happened in the past 10 years.

Circa 2004

We have:

• Held 9 different full time jobs between the two of us
• Spent 8 of those years with at least one of us in school
• Been married for 7 years
• Completed 6 higher education degrees (with zero educational debt!!)
• Lived in 5 homes and had 5 cars
• Spent time in 4 different countries
• Moved to 3 different cities
• Given birth to 2 kids in 2 different countries
• Had 1 dog

It's been an amazing 10 years!  So much has changed, but I am still so glad that I agreed to be his girlfriend that day (and said yes to a few other questions along the way).

7 years ago today I married my best friend.

Happy anniversary to the man who continually teaches me more about what it means to love and be loved.  Thank you for helping me to understand grace and steadfast love.  My life and the way I live it are better because of you.

I found my Mr. Right almost 10 years ago at Grove City College.  If you are familiar with Grove City College you probably know that it is kind a cliché to find your future spouse there.  At the freshman orientation one of the previous administrators used to stand in front of the entire freshman body every year and say “look to your left, look to your right, your future mate may be in sight.”  

Seriously, it’s not a myth.  I personally experienced it.

College Days at Grove City

Despite this, at the beginning of my sophomore year I found Mr. Right.  It was laundry day and he was wearing gym shorts, a tank top, and socks stained brown from a previous spelunking adventure.  His first words to me (during a game of flag football) were:  “Do you know how to play?  Run that way and catch the ball.”  Mind you this was before he even bothered introducing himself or finding out my name.  Real knight in shining armor kind of stuff!  Despite all of that I fell in love with him and here we are almost 10 years later, going on 7 years of marriage, and about to have our second child. God has a sense of humor and knows just what we need.

I have been reading a somewhat unknown classic novel entitled The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.  It was first published in 1860 and is regarded as one of both the first sensation and mystery novels.    I kind of stumbled upon it on the website Goodbooks.com (something fun to check out if you like to read).  I’m only about a quarter of the way through (when you have a toddler to chase around all day and you tend to read more than one book at a time the process gets slowed down a bit), but so far I have really enjoyed it.  It is full of little quotes that stop and make you ponder for a moment.  Like this one:

“The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.” (pg. 35)

Isn’t that who all women long to be – the woman who makes life more complete for one man? 

I doubt that Dave would ever spout this kind of prose in reference to our first meeting, but I do know that my life is fuller because of him.  I’m a blessed woman to have found the man who makes my life the kind of adventure it should be, and I can't imagine living this adventure out with anyone else.  He is the man who can still make me feel beautiful despite my ever growing pregnant belly, who puts up with my moods swings, and makes me feel loved every day.

In Zihuatanejo, Mexico this past November

He’s my Mr. Right.

I’m not a runner.  I never have been.  Friends tell me they are training for a half-marathon or that competing in a triathlon is on their bucket list.  I smile and give them an encouraging “you can do it” or “good for you.”  Inside I’m thinking “why do that to yourself?”  I have a list of my own, but nowhere on there will you find anything having to do with running.  Sure, I have my brief fantasies about enjoying a good run - the sun on my face, the wind at my back, the exhilaration of endorphins surging, and a powerful feeling of strength in my legs, but these are only brief flights of my imagination. 

However, God had put a little kink in my plan to continue to avoid running.  I was reading Hebrews 12:1 (ESV):

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every single weight, and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”.

I’ve read this verse many times before.  It’s a favorite of youth group and Bible study leaders (I’ve been among them).  This time I was particularly struck by the phrase “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  Currently my race includes adapting to a new culture and country and learning to be a stay-at-home-mom, but I’ll be honest, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it as my husband’s race.  We moved here for his teaching job, his vision of furthering his career, his dream of learning Spanish to better reach the growing Hispanic population, which is largely underserved by the American education system, and because of his adventurous spirit that longed to try out living abroad.  I was just along for the ride; part of the family and support system.  But the truth is that this is my race, a race that has been specifically set in front of me, not by default, but by design.  Furthermore, I am called to run it with endurance; to set aside everything weighing me down in this world and give it all I’ve got.  God put me right where I am, right now, for a reason.  His timing is perfect.

He has an overarching design that has been purposely put into place.  I’m simply called to trust.  I’m called to live by faith.  Despite my questions of my purpose in this current location, despite my doubts, and despite my whining nature I’m called to live in complete faith that this is his plan.  My race is in his hands.  I don’t have to see the finish line in order to run, I simply have to run and keep trusting.

As someone who spent three years working in a college career development office I have spent a lot of time thinking about the concepts of vocation and calling.  I have contemplated how personality type, interests, skills, and education correspond with academic choice, career fit, and job change.  I am familiar with the interpretations for the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) based on the work of Carl Jung, John Holland’s theory of Career Choice and the RIASEC interest assessment, and the DISC inventories developed by John Geier.  If you need help with a resume or cover letter I’m your girl.  However, despite this array of career theory knowledge I have spent very little time contemplating the vocation of Mom.

For the first several months of Eli’s life I worked full time.  Mom was simply thought of as one of my roles in life.  A vocation was something you did outside the home, a paid position to be done alongside other employees.  However, I longed to be able to be home with my son.  I longed to be there to see every little change and development occur for the very first time, to be able to say I was there for every milestone.  I longed to be a stay-at-home-mom, but I still didn’t think of it as a vocation, simply a dream.

Then we moved to Mexico.  One of the many reasons we moved was to enable me to live out this dream.  Here we can afford to live on my husband’s teacher’s salary.  Here we can afford for me to stay home with our kids.  I am a stay-at-home-mom. 

Before we moved here I heard many people say that the transition to stay-at-home-mom was hard.  They said that they struggled with the change from being out in the work world to being at home all the time, the transition from spending the majority of one’s time with adults to with a child (or children).  I didn’t get it.  This was my dream.  This was going to make my life so much easier.  There would be more time with my little bundle of joy, more time to get things done around the house, and more time for me.  I would be a better mother and a better wife.  I could happily live out the life of Susie Homemaker – cooking, cleaning, and raising my child with a song in my heart and a smile on my lips.  It would be like that scene in Enchanted where Giselle simply begins to sing and suddenly the apartment is clean, she has made herself a new outfit, and the world is a better place filled with incredibly helpful little creatures.

Here’s the problem: 1) I can’t sing, 2) I hate sewing, and 3) I’m pretty sure I would freak out if my apartment was suddenly filled with rats,birds, and other little critters.  As much as I would like my life to be a musical that’s just not the real world. 

Instead we moved to Mexico, I became a stay-at-home mom, and suddenly I understood what all those women were talking about.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love being able to stay home with Eli and feel incredibly blessed to be able to do so.  I love getting to see him grow and develop with each new day.  I even love the exhaustion of chasing a toddler around.  But it’s still exhaustion.  There’s still plenty of less than enjoyable work to be done.  I don’t think I’ll ever come to love washing dishes or cleaning toilets.

And then there’s the loneliness.  My sweet little boy with his 4 word vocabulary can only provide so much intellectual stimulation.  Plus, we moved to Mexico.  My whole world has turned upside down and I’m trying to learn a new language in the process.  It’s a challenging adventure to say the least.  But that dreaded loneliness has left me with plenty of time to contemplate the job of mom.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that being a stay-at-home mom, at this stage in my life, is truly my vocation. It’s a job that I am called to do to the best of my ability, a calling if you will.  I am not monetarily paid, I don’t really have a boss, and I’m not sure it can be put on a resume for future career opportunities, but God has given me this opportunity and I long to fulfill it to the best of my ability.

I’m still learning how to be a stay-at-home-mom, how to be a mom in general for that matter.  It’s a lesson I have a feeling I’ll be working on for a long time.  However, there’s something important about seeing it as my vocation and realizing the blessing and the calling that God has given me for this stage in my life.  Mothering doesn’t require a specific personality type, interest set, or education level.  It requires dedication, patience, unconditional love, and a lot of hard work.  Even if I go back to work someday I hope that I will never lose sight of being a mom as part of my vocation.  It’s a high calling and a blessing.  It’s beautiful and overwhelming.  It’s part of the adventure.  

Am I flexible enough?  I ask myself this question a lot.  I don’t mean flexible in the sense of being able to touch my toes (which is not one of my strengths by the way).  I mean flexible in the sense of being able to take whatever life throws at me with grace and courage.  Can I handle changes in my lifestyle or even changes in the day to day and still smile and count my blessings?

Mexico has required me to be flexible.  My whole world has changed and I would like to believe I’ve handled it pretty well so far, but I’ve definitely had my grumbly moments (ok and sometimes days).  I just want to make sure that overall I’m not just rolling with the punches, but actually being flexible, adapting to the new, and counting my blessings.

I am blessed to be able to stay home with an adorable, healthy, even-tempered, and joyful little boy (I should probably take some cues from him).

I am blessed to be married to a God-loving man who enjoys his work, supports his family, knows how to make me laugh, and gets home by 4:30 every day.

I am blessed to live near family who loves me, supports me, and has been overwhelmingly willing to help me as I adjust to a new culture.

I am blessed to have loving family hundreds of miles away who I can still talk to regularly over Skype and who prayerfully support me no matter where in the world I am.

I am blessed to live in a new culture – to have opportunities to explore and expand my horizons.

There are so many reasons I am blessed.

Proverbs 31:25-26 says “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.  She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”

I want to be that woman.  I want to always be ready to take on the days ahead with strength, dignity, wisdom, and kindness - no matter what they hold.