grace

Fifteen years ago, we stood before God and promised to walk through life together. At the time, I thought I knew what our future might hold. I imagined a home, children, careers, traditions, and milestones. What I couldn’t imagine was how many different lives we would live within this one marriage. Honestly, our life looks nothing like I imagined when we high-fived I do. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Over the last fifteen years, we have been newlyweds and exhausted parents. We have celebrated promotions and navigated disappointments. We have welcomed babies, endured uncertainty, packed boxes, said difficult goodbyes, and started over more than once. We have walked through seasons that felt abundant and seasons that required us to trust God one day at a time.

When I look back at our marriage, I don’t see a perfect story. I see a testimony of God’s faithfulness.

God’s Provision

There were seasons when we weren’t sure how everything would work out financially. There were moments when unexpected expenses, career changes, and uncertainty made the future feel unclear.

We bought our house right before a housing market boom in our area, and we have been able to update it to our forever home.

Tom got his VA benefits upgraded right before his law enforcement career was uprooted and left him waiting on a lawsuit. And then the lawsuit itself became a significant blessing.

Looking back, I can see God’s fingerprints all over those moments. He provided what we needed, often in ways we never expected. I get goosebumps thinking about all the times that it just worked out as it needed to for us to feel comfort.

God’s Guidance Through Career Changes

Neither of us could have predicted the paths our careers would take. When we got married, Tom wanted to be a canine officer, and I was going to continue working and moving up in Residence Life on a college campus.

Over the years we got devastating no’s and some yes’s that took faith in the unknown. We went down unanticipated paths as the years have gone by. I worked in Disability Services and then found myself working up College Enrollment Management positions which was a far cry from my Residence Life roots. Tom joined the Army and then eventually worked as a road police officer with a pit stop as a Loan Specialist for a hot second. Each of these experiences have helped us where we are now. I would not be the teacher I am now without the path that led me here. I think about the opportunities Tom has had that have helped us in other areas of our life. He can connect with ANYONE due to his law enforcement conversation skills, and even his time working on loans has come in handy with our own house and finances.

I also think about the people along each of these routes who either nudged us with job openings, helped mentor us, or highlighted that it was time for a change for a myriad of reasons. It is another moment of looking back and thinking how perfect all the timing was for each interaction to move us.

At the time, some doors closing felt painful. Some opportunities felt risky. But God was writing a story we couldn’t yet see. He allowed for these career changes to help us grow together as partners. I will have to say these career moments gave us some of our darkest moments where we felt hopeless and we each have had to dig the other out of those career pitfalls. It is in these moments that leaning on each other just made our marriage that much stronger and helped us realize that our careers don’t have to define us.

God’s Faithfulness Through Medical Challenges

There have been moments when health concerns brought fear, uncertainty, and difficult decisions.

I still can’t think about Tom’s situation without getting a lump in my throat thinking about God’s graces during that time.

But we have seen it other moments like George being in the NICU, my hemorrhaging after Daphne’s birth, and Wally’s seizures.

All of these were scary and again moved us to have faith and lean on each other for strength. It was in these situations that our marriage was a lifeline because someone else was going through it with you and you could share the weight of it all.

In those moments, God met us with strength, wisdom, peace, and wove us even more together.

God’s Grace in Parenting

Perhaps nothing has stretched us, humbled us, or grown us more than becoming parents.

One of the greatest blessings of our marriage has been choosing each other as partners in parenthood. Before we ever held our babies, we each carried our own stories, experiences, traditions, and even wounds from childhood. Some things we wanted to recreate. Others we wanted to do differently. Parenting has a way of bringing all of that to the surface, inviting you to examine where you came from while deciding together where you want to go.

There have been countless conversations about the kind of family we hope to build, the values we want to pass on, and the cycles we want to break. We haven’t always approached things from the same perspective, but we’ve continued to learn from one another and grow together. In many ways, raising our children has also been a journey of healing and growth for us. It has given us the opportunity to extend grace to our younger selves, appreciate the sacrifices of those who raised us, and intentionally create a home rooted in love, faith, laughter, and security.

Looking back, I am so grateful not only for the children we have been entrusted with, but for the person standing beside me through every sleepless night, difficult decision, proud moment, and unexpected challenge. There is something sacred about building a family together, about taking two different histories and, with God’s help, creating a new legacy for the generations that follow.

God’s Presence in Navigating Relationships

Life is rarely complicated because of circumstances alone. More often, it is relationships that stretch us, shape us, and challenge us the most.

Family dynamics. Friendships. Misunderstandings. Seasons of hurt and healing, but also finding “our circle” of people.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the saying that “people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” As we’ve moved, changed careers, navigated deployments, raised children, and grown into different versions of ourselves, we’ve experienced all three. Some relationships have stood the test of time and distance, becoming part of the foundation of our lives. Others served a purpose in a particular season, offering support, wisdom, or companionship when we needed it most. And some relationships required difficult conversations, changed over time, or came to an end altogether.

One of the gifts of marriage has been having a partner to walk through those moments with. We haven’t always viewed every relationship the same way, but we’ve learned to trust each other, support one another’s decisions, and extend grace as we worked through complicated dynamics with family, friends, and the communities around us.

Through it all, God has continually taught us that love and forgiveness can coexist with healthy boundaries. He has shown us when to hold on, when to seek reconciliation, and when to release relationships into His hands. In every season, He has used the people in our lives to teach us something about grace, humility, and what it means to love others well.

God’s Faithfulness in the Hardest Seasons

Some chapters were heavier than others.

The seasons where we didn’t know how things would turn out.
The seasons that tested our faith.
The seasons that revealed what we were truly made of.

Deployments
Moving
Layoffs
Babies
Sickness
Homebuying
Home Renovation
Church Exploration

When I look back now, I see that God never wasted any of it.

The Blessing of Growing Together

The greatest gift of these fifteen years isn’t the life we’ve built. It’s who we’ve become.

We are not the same people who stood at the altar fifteen years ago. Life has changed us. Parenthood has changed us. Challenges have changed us. God’s faithfulness has changed us.

And somehow, through all those versions of ourselves, we have continued to choose each other.

As I look back over fifteen years, my heart is filled with gratitude. Not because every season was easy, but because God was present in every season.

His provision.
His protection.
His grace.
His guidance.
His faithfulness.

Fifteen years later, those are the blessings I celebrate most.

Here’s to fifteen years of God’s goodness and whatever adventures He has planned for the years ahead.

I didn’t know I would be back in this place so soon. Honestly, I hadn’t really left the grief state yet for Crosby, but yesterday we said goodbye suddenly to our Gracie girl.

I am devastated. She wasn’t just a dog to me. She was my constant, my rock, my comforter. She has been my saving Grace for almost 10 years.

We got Grace just a few months after we got married in 2011. She was our first baby. Tom and I had never had a dog that wasn’t really our parents’ pet. She would have been 11 in December, and our 10 year adoption anniversary would have been in October. She joined us as a newly married couple, and she has been with us for every change since.

Through Army basic training and a deployment.

Through 4 homes, 3 moves, and 3 states.

Through many career changes.

Through our transition to parenthood three times over.

Through road trips, to backyard BBQs, to holidays, to just ordinary days.

Through all the little moments that made up our life over the last decade.

I remember the excitement of bringing her home after we rescued her from the shelter. When I close my eyes, I can still relive the feelings and the nervous chatter we had with her in the car ride home for the first time. We lived in a residence hall at Iowa State at the time. And she really was the best campus dog we could have asked for. She loved the students and they loved her back. She became a mascot of sorts and gave me an access point to build even deeper connections with my students. Some of my fondest memories of our girl were in that little one bedroom apartment on campus.

She was my companion while Tom went to basic training and went through his deployment. She was such a great distraction in those lonely times. She gave me something to smile about and something to be responsible for when I came home without Tom there. She was my everything. There were many days I am not sure I would have made it through without her.

She was such a diva too. She did what she wanted, and we all just lived in her world. She was always lounging, and couldn’t be bothered by most things. She was like a person at times with how she sat, and I swear she gave you hugs.

She did not like to go outside unless it was snowing. She would angry pee on the rug by the front door when it was any type of weather outside. Like how dare I ask her to go outside when it is raining! However, this girl was obsessed with snow. It was like candy coming down from the sky for her.

I will always remember how she greeted people. She would turn her body into a “U” shape and prance around like that.

She thought she was a lap dog, and she would wriggle her way to nestle into you. She loved to snuggle with us in our bed and bury herself in the blankets.

There are just countless memories that I am looking back on. She was my person in dog form. She was our home. I am just sitting here in shock trying to come up with words to give an adequate tribute to everything that she was to our family. I am lost and truly gutted.

With Crosby, we had time to prepare for the lasts with his cancer diagnosis. This time with Grace it was sudden. We knew her time was coming obviously as she was nearly 11 years old which is a substantial life for a boxer. But we didn’t get to ready ourselves enough for the lasts. I am so grateful that I was working from home and Tom was off yesterday because otherwise I would not have been able to hold her as she took her last breath. It was so fast. I just happened to be upstairs with Wally’s afternoon feeding to watch her have a seizure. As we sped to the vet’s, she died in the back of the truck. Unfortunately she had a tumor in her belly that was unseen that had ruptured. There was literally nothing we could do.

After Crosby died, I remember telling Tom that Crosby went first to prepare us for Grace leaving. I knew this tragedy would be a hard hit to us. I was naive to think how excruciating it would actually be. I think Grace knew her time was coming too, and like the Queen that she was, she wanted to go out on her own terms. I think she also wanted to have us to herself for a little while like it was in the beginning. But even going through the emotional toil with Crosby just a couple months ago could not have prepared me this roller coaster of emotions.

We should have known with going through this recently with Crosby, but what you don’t realize hurts more than not knowing they are the lasts, is experiencing the firsts without them. It’s very surreal right now, and there have already been moments in the last 24 hours that I have caught myself calling out her name, looking for her sprawled out on the couch as I walk by, or hearing phantom doggy steps. Having to wake up today without hearing her stretch and yawn in her chair was gut-wrenching.

There is sadness and an emptiness in my bones that is indescribable, but I also am feeling this immense amount of guilt. Guilt that she had been hurting for a while, and we just didn’t know. Guilt that we didn’t ask for more tests on her after Crosby died. Guilt that our kids didn’t get more time. Guilt that there was possibly more that we could do. Guilt over being helpless. Guilt that we didn’t live it up with her these last few days and let her have more table scraps.

Grace was just the best. She just always knew what you needed. She even knew that she was ours before we did.

I know deep down that she had the best life, and that while we had her for the last decade she made our lives exponentially better. And for that I can only say thank you to the best dog I have ever had.

But this hurts. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.