40 Years of Marriage!

My reflection in 40 years of Marriage👍🏻😃🎈🎉

Forty years of life together, we were babies when we said, “I do.” Marriage has a way of making you realize quickly how self centered you are!  Especially at 19 and 20 years of age!

 

After only a few years of marriage and buying two homes within the first few years, we felt the weight of the 80’s recession. I was the only one working. I was a pretty successful hairstylist but not enough to keep us going. With no construction work foreseen in the near future Ric entered the Air Force at the ripe old age of 26!  I remember he called me from Oakland and said, “I’m in!”  I was shocked!  Believe it or not, that’s old for enlisted. He quickly gained promotion after promotion until we were with our own age group!

 

We’ve moved 14 times in 40 years. Three miscarriages, and four babies lost were very painful, but then God gave us a surprise! He blessed us with three miracle babies. Life was busy as a young military family. The richer or poorer part of vows came into play in our lives back then. We had our turn on WIC, food stamps, base garage sales, thrift stores and double coupons days. Shopping at the base commissary with three little ones was always an adventure! Moving from base house to base house was always a decorating challenge. I remember one time I brought home a huge, dilapidated, old picnic bench. It was redwood and I didn’t know it. Ric made it look like new!  All the kids in our neighborhood enjoyed that picnic bench. I quickly learned creative shopping as a young mother of three.

 

Life flew by, many diapers, and a few AF bases, brought us to our last move to California. Soon after arriving our forth child entered our lives. He was eight years old. This brought our kids to ages 9, 8, 7 and 4 years which made life busy and an enjoyable blur.  Ric was always working hard and studying to make rank. It paid off and in 16 years he made the top enlisted rank CMSGT!  This was a huge achievement in a short amount of service time. We were so blessed! Then came the many years I spent more time in the minivan than anywhere else! Lessons, sports, orthodontist appointments, all the classroom parties and activities made everyday a scheduling adventure for me!

 

In sickness and in health at 42, I remember the first signs of PLS. Slowly it started eating my freedom, my soul and my body. It’s been a journey and a fight to live and not die. I would be dead by now if not learning who God really is. I have believed that God has given me His best, His Son, Jesus to help me through and out of the shadow of the valley. The hardest thing for me was too loose many relationships and friendships, the feeling of isolation can kill you if you let it in. Sickness, marriage and kids, it has not been easy peasy, for any of us, but God; He sustains us. We’ve chosen to love through the hard stuff and to keep moving forward.

 

Ric working on achieving a higher education has his B.S. and is almost done with his Masters. Even after all the years of studying to make rank, and test after test, he’s still studying and improving himself. I can’t remember him not studying for something. I filled in the holes financially and worked around my family, as much as I could. I earned trips and perks with my job and managed to send my kids to private, Christian schools from preschool to junior high. After 33 years of work, I was forced to retire but it opened a whole new chapter in my life. I now go to bible college online and am learning God’s true nature. His will is for me to be healthy! He didn’t make me sick! I also found some relief in learning to paint with watercolor, writing my own blog and am also challenging my baking skills with gluten free and Paleo baking. Ric’s hit some of his major bucket list item recently by summiting Mt. Whitney twice, and doing some major camping and hiking in the Sierras. He is also a mountain biking fanatic, when he has time.

 

Love is a choice. It’s a choice to stay together. Sometimes you have to choose that daily. You learn to compromise, let go and forgive over and over. Communication is key, but first you have to learn each other’s communication styles. It’s not always verbal. Sometimes you have to be like a dog with a bone and just hang on and say, “I’m not giving up”!

 

Marriage rarely is 50/50 or 100% each. There are seasons, but usually one of you has to decide this too shall pass. Each has strengths in different areas and has strength in different times of life. You can look at those times through rose-colored glass or a magnifying glass, it’s your choice. You can be a spectator or participant. When life does give you lemons you can make lemonade by choosing to love. I have found this would be impossible without God! He is my source of strength, peace and where I can go to be encouraged and loved so I can give love.

 

1 Cor.13:4-8

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. 

 

1 John 4:20 (KJV)

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

 

Now the kids are in their twenties finding their own path in life. I thank God they are all healthy and living with purpose. This leaves us empty nesters. It happened so fast!  We are slowly adjusting to this. One of the hardest things for me is to learn how to cook for just two. I always make too much!

We are looking forward to grandchildren someday. But Ric and I both agree we will not retire and sit around when that time comes. We are being productive, dreaming bigger, and excited to take on a new chapter in life that will take us somewhere new.