On the Shores of Hume Lake...

If you've been reading Benji's post you know that we took a blissful vacation to the Grand Canyon and California over the past 3 weeks. Friday, May 26th was a special day for us. It was our fifth wedding anniversary.

We spent the day at Hume Lake Christian Camps, up in the Sequoias in California. We've both been going to this camp since middle school...through high school...then as counselors. Its a place with history for us.

We took a walk around the lake, then had a picnic by the waters' edge and sat and talked and read our Bibles. It was good to be in such a special place and reflect on what 5 years of marriage have brought.

Sitting there on the shores of Hume Lake, I remembered how, eight years ago, I cried at the very place we were sitting. My girlfriend had just asked me what was "going on" with Benji and me. I started crying. "Nothing." I said. "Yeah right" she said. "I am not the only one who sees what's going on between you two." I remember telling her through my tears that I didn't want to love Benji...anymore...ever....that I'd prayed that God would let me just be rid of my feelings for him, but it never seemed to work. I already had a boyfriend back at college, I certainly didn't need Benji! Puh-lease. No thanks. I cried. " I just don't want to like him...but I do!"

Fast forward a week: a long letter from Benji, a break up with my boyfriend, and a long talk in an old Honda. We've been together ever since.

When I tell people that we've known each other since middle school, I usually get the "Oh, that's so cute" gushing. I suppose it could be cute, but for us it isn't really. Because there are times when we were in each others' lives, with funny memories with our group of friends and laughing about the things we shared, not as an "us" but just as friends.

But then there are the sideline memories...the ones where we looked on at the other from a distance, because we weren't there, weren't welcome in the inner circle of the others' life. Watched each other make stupid decisions. Trying to tell ourselves that it didn't matter, because its not like we belonged to each other.

This whole "sidelines" business was probalby the hardest thing we've had to hurdle as of yet. When we started dating we agreed that "the past is the past" and we'd move forward and really, what was the benefit of re-hashing the past? Well, we found out the benefit. The benefit is that confessions that needed to be made were held onto until a few months before we got married, and we spent the first two years of our marriage working through and forgiving through and crying through things we should have dealt with several years earlier. It was a tough time. Lots of prayer and good, honest friends who shared our hurts helped.

And God, as He is, was faithful to us. We learned lessons of love and grace and the beauty of redemption that you can't learn except to experience them in all their pain and gore.

So I sat there and rejoiced in all that God has done in us. Grateful for my marriage. Grateful that I got lucky and tricked Benj into marrying me. God redeemed me. And He redeemed my marriage.

The best part of the day? My anniversary gift. An 18 page allegory that Benj wrote about a boy who struggles with and overcomes...loneliness, self-doubt, self-pity, lust, laziness, pride and selfishness - to get, of course, the girl. He read it to me as we sat by the lake. It was 1/2 of a story that seemed very familiar...

I've never felt so loved.