Happy New Year! The year 2015 has brought me to a new chapter in my life. Today I married the girl that God hid in my life for over six years. HE revealed her to me in 2014 as the person who would not only be a great friend to me, but someone who would enhance my life's journey in the most awesome way. Katie and I met through mutual friends in my junior year of high school when she was a freshman in college. We started off as friends by association through another friend and as time ticked by in those almost six years since we met, we grew closer as friends.
God does indeed work in mysterious ways and if someone would have told me when I first met Katie that we would eventually become partners in our life's journey I would never have believed them. I have always liked Katie and enjoyed our friendship. Thinking back through those years I can now see how our friendship progressed and formed a life of its own. It was last year during one of the darkest times in my journey that Katie stood by my side through some very disturbing moments. When I needed her in my life the most she stepped up and would not let go no matter how hard I tried to push her away. She was at her strongest as I was at my weakest and that was a very definite sign to me that she was someone God put in my life. A gift from HIM that would change the way I felt about my worthiness in life, my purpose in the world, the value of what God instilled in me and my faith in life.
I do not claim to have all the answers to all my questions in life. I do not claim to be where I feel I need to be at the level I feel I should be. What I do acknowledge is that Katie and I together will be there for each other in our times of need. We will enhance the joy in each others lives ten-fold. I have learned more about myself and the life I have from the past six months that Katie and I have been a couple, exclusive in our relationship with each other. In such a short time I found answers to questions I asked myself over the past six years. I have found comfort inside of me that there is someone there who may not always understand me, but will always support me through the inner struggles I face. I have learned that I can be me, make my own decisions, work on what makes me happen and focus on what I feel I want out of life and stop trying to live up to other peoples expectations of who I should be.
Today I married the girl I feel God created just for me. The gift to me from God that I will treasure for eternity. It took a total of ten minutes to be married in a private ceremony perform by Father Tom who has been a spiritual guide to me for the past ten years. A ceremony that combined our separate lives into one union under God that blesses our commitment to always stand next to one another when we are at our strongest as well as our weakest. It was that simple. Perhaps at a later date we will hold a ceremony that our friends and family will attend and help us celebrate that commitment to one another. For now, this was for us, to share that moment, in private, as we committed to one another "til death do us part".
Today we celebrated the New Year with a New Beginning. That new beginning does not stop with our newfound relationship status. Katie and I are also committed to the year of never giving up, never quitting. We have several people in our lives who ended 2014 with questions that have not yet been answered, with prayers that have not yet stopped being said. We will dedicate this year to those in our lives that are struggling for survival, facing many hard decisions on how to advance their lives in the right direction. We know that God is with us in our lives and through Him our prayers will be answered. The financial struggles, the health issues, the career changes and any other obstacles getting in the way of our friends and family from enjoying life at its grandest is what we will pray for, remain hopeful for, and ask God for the strength to see them through.
WE ARE NOT QUITTERS, and we hope that all of you feel the same way. I ask that you practice the art of repeating that phrase with each day you can wake up refreshed and go to sleep at night thankful for another blessed day. WE ARE NOT QUITTERS. WE ARE NOT QUITTERS.
