So Different, Yet Still the Same

This is my family at the being of Summer 2000. The Original Seven


Here we are at Janelle's wedding in 2005. We've more than doubled in size! (Elijah is the only one missing; he wasn't born yet.) It's not the greatest picture, but when there's 15 of you, you take what you can get.



I was having some fun reading through some old emails that I wrote to Chris the summer that we got engaged. To give you a little history, Chris and I had been dating for about six months and by then knew we wanted to get married. Chris was interning at a church in Hawaii, and I was working as a secretary at home. While we knew that we wanted to get married the following summer, I hadn't talked with my parents about it. (And since I was only 19, this was very much their business.) I didn't think they had an inkling about the great plans that we were dreaming of, but, alas, as I am quickly learning to appreciate, parents know much more than their children think they do.

It's so interesting to read these emails from almost six years ago and get a glimpse of what my life used to be like. To sum up my life that summer, I worked about 25 hours at my dad's office. I spent a lot of time with family and went down to my grandparents' often. My weeks were filled with helping my mom, going to Matthew's soccer games, and probably spending some precious last hours laboring with my dear old dad in his garden. Apparently, according to the emails, I was also madly in love with Chris. (I think I remember that part.)

It's a bit different than my life now but not too much. My life still is consumed with family - just my new one: Chris and Luke. Obviously, I have a lot more responsibility in my life now too. And even though, at that time, I was often discouraged with my current circumstances and longed to be married, now I really look back at that time with thankfulness. It was such a great time! I love being married; I wouldn't trade this life for that one - EVER. But, I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to have that one last summer to really enjoy my family, my home, the beautiful land in northeast Wisconsin, being close to my grandparents, and much more before I would move away and be a real grown up and live happily ever after.

Looking back in history, be it through a history book or my old emails, offers many valuable and often encouraging principles. God is always good. He is always in control. And it will always be ok. Some of those old emails reflected a lot of personal anguish and frustration, and by God's grace I was pushed to trust him more. The funny thing is, I don't have the slightest idea what was so huge and complicated and troubling to me back then. But, I do know that God has been good; he was in control, and everything is ok.

Epilogue: Absence certainly did make the heart grow fonder. Two days after Chris and I were reunited after that long summer, Chris proposed and I said, "Yippee!" To see more great pictures from that summer, click here.