This weekend Michael Luke and I will celebrate five years of marriage together!

In honor of that, I am interrupting the regularly scheduled post about our DIY home projects and our life with a baby to share about our marriage. A marriage that has definitely been built on and strengthened by our relationship with God.

Five years ago we had just moved to Birmingham. I was less than a year into my first job as in interior designer, and ML was in his first semester of physical therapy school at UAB. We got married during Spring Break. That makes it sound real grown up doesn’t it?

Well anyway… a wedding and honeymoon later and we were back setting up camp at home.

I attempted to expand my mediocre cooking skills, and he tried to conquer his inability to focus/study for long periods of time. We made time each Monday night to be a part of a local ministry here, CMMA (Christian Medical Ministry of Alabama). Supper was provided free, so how could we turn that down? Through this group we felt like we were blessed with three years of marriage counseling.

We went to the couples group, but there is also a group that ministers to single students.

So much of their ministry is invested in strengthening and protecting the marriages of couples in the medical community. For instance, we learned about ML’s desire for respect in a marriage and my desire for love and how that looks biblically. We actually learned how to argue and had the opportunity to hear from older couples about their marriage.

This was such an awesome opportunity, and we wish everyone was able to experience such excellent counseling in the beginning years of their marriage.

We still attend this group now because we want to encourage other students to invest in their marriages, and because honestly, we are still learning so much!

We have also been blessed during our five years of marriage to go on several mission trips: Mexico, Dominican Republic (twice), and Seattle. Prior to any of these, I had only gone on a couple of trips (more spiritually focused than ministry focused) with my church youth group in high school. So, needless to say, I was little nervous about leaving the comforts of hotels, sanitary water, and flushing toilets for some of these trips. I was never a camper growing up. But you know what? None of that matters to me now. We enjoy going and having the opportunity to minister to other people groups in the world and often find our own lives being transformed by these trips.

God has also blessed us in our marriage with Noah. (It’s a girl Noah.)

When we first got married, I was a little (ok a lot) intimidated by babies. My knowledge about them was pretty much zero! It didn’t really bother me though because I didn’t see myself going through the whole child birth thing. Frankly, it came across as a little scary. That was ok though because I have had a heart for adoption for as long as I can remember. And while Michael Luke shared in my desire for adopting children, he sorta wanted one of his own too. But you know how God is, a few years later I found myself with the same desire to have a child of our own.

And I haven’t regretted it since. It has truly been amazing to see God show off His glory and power by allowing such an intricate, detailed baby to grow inside of me! And then to give birth to her. Sometimes I just sit staring at her in wonder of Him. We think she is beautiful, and she is because she is made in the image of God.

Our desire for adoption has not diminished though. Scripture calls us to care for the orphans and what better example than to show them God’s love for them by bringing them into our house to care for them physically and spirituality. By God’s grace we have been adopted into His family. Earthly adoption is a natural response to the adoption as sons and daughters we have received. God desires orphans from all nations to be adopted into Christ-honoring families, so they may ultimately be adopted into His eternal family through Jesus Christ.

During our first year of marriage, we also bought our first/current house.

We might have jumped the gun a little bit, purchasing it while he was still in school, but we have enjoyed personalizing the space and making it ours. And now that he is out in the working world and student loans paid off, we are finding more opportunities to get creative and prepare this house for resale someday. We did forgo our title as DINKs (double income no kids) last year though, to give me the opportunity to stay home and invest in Noah’s life. And while this does shrink the home improvement budget a little bit, it is completely worth it!

We have had an amazing five years together, and I look forward to the next five sixty-five years together!

FYI: I mentioned last year here that every year we select a Christmas ornament to remember our anniversary by. This year is no different… except we haven’t bought the ornament yet. We are working on our joint gift for each other though, and have decided what type of ornament to get. I will share more about our gift to each other next week but will leave you with a hint. It’s wood. A little strange maybe but the traditional gift for a five year anniversary is wood.

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