A Love Story

Today my husband and I celebrate our 20th Dating Anniversary!  Yes, we still celebrate that!  It's vitally important to celebrate love.

Twenty years ago, Sam and I were in college.  We met in the small campus library.  I was stressing over a legal research class and Sam noticed.  We started talking.  We started hanging out.  We went through that akward stage of semi stalking each other in hopes of sharing company.  We were drawn to each other.  We soon became best friends which led to a nerve racking first date and then an admission of love.  Six months later we were engaged and nine months after that we were married.

Some thought we were rash and that we were going too fast.  It was fast.  It was easy.  It was right.  It was two really odd puzzle pieces that finally found that they fit with each other.  From the very beginning, we were blessed with an amazing relationship.  We knew God had chosen to put our paths together.  We knew God had a purpose for this marriage.

One of our chief concerns when we learned of Isaac's diagnosis was the high divorce rate of parents with children with autism.  Amid all the other concerns of late toilet training, limited independence, language difficulty, and intellectual disabililty, it was the divorce rate of the parents that scared me most.  Sam and I fit.  We had to deal with this together.  I didn't know if I could get through it alone.

People react to life changing moments in different ways.  Isaac's autism has always been a great challenge.  It has been the boiling water in our relationship....it has been hard but it has brought out the rich aromatic flavor of who we are together.  The hardship has steeped the tea.  When faced with challenges we couldn't have dreamed of that bombarded us throughout our journey, we have held on to God and to each other.

I am so thankful for this man I call my husband and for the great blessing of loving him, dating him, and calling him my own for the last 20 years.

There is hope in our journey with Isaac.  Isaac was created for a purpose by God and Sam and I are part of that plan.  Of that I am sure.