At this point in the history of this blog, we have had 3 guest posts. Today, we get our 4th and boy oh boy is the author a sexy beast! Tricia Erickson is my longtime friend, my wife, my best buddy, and the coolest person I have ever met. She studied journalism at Southwest Baptist University, is the Communication Coordinator for an amazing Non Profit called Clinic In A Can, and does lots of work with Audacity Church. I'm honored to have her on my blog finally!
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One year. One year ago today, I started an amazing adventure with my best friend. It’s so crazy. In some ways I feel like Josh and I have been married for ever, but then at the same time I can hardly believe it’s been a whole year.
I’ve been reflecting a lot this week over our first year of marriage. This entire year has been a complete change and transition for me. We got married, moved to a new city, made a new home, made new friends, got new jobs, started a new church (Audacity Church in Wichita, KS), began new traditions…and that’s only a few things!
More times than not, all these new things were quite overwhelming. But in spite of all the craziness of a new life, I always had one constant with me – my best friend, my husband.
Just getting to be with my best friend has been the most amazing part of year one of marriage. I know it seems like a pretty obvious part of a first year of marriage, getting to be together, but it’s something that I learned to never ever EVER take for granted. You see, this year was incredibly special for us because we were finally together. The year before our marriage was the hardest year of my life because we spent it living in different parts of the world. Josh was deployed with the army and I was finishing up my last year of college. That year is still sometimes hard to think about because of the emotional damaged I experienced.
But what I didn’t realize was that while I was going through the hardest year of my life, God was setting me up for the best year of my life. For every tear that I cried in loneliness last year, I had a laugh with my best friend this year. For every day I said “I miss you” last year, I got to say “good morning love” this year. For every date we didn’t get to go on last year, we got to go on an awesome adventure together this year.
I’ve learned a lot this year…A LOT. But what I’ve learned the most is God is faithful and truly does have my best interest at heart. I think of it kind of like the story of Job. Now I’m not saying that I suffered nearly to the extent that he did – but I often found myself asking God “why?!” and unfortunately while I was going through it I didn’t have the faith like Job. But at the end of Job’s story, God gave him everything he lost and so much more. God overwhelmed Job with his blessing. That’s what I feel like this year. For the year of terrible heart ache and separation, God blessed us over and over with an amazing first year of marriage together. I never thought I could ever get to the point where I thanked God for the seemingly awful year of deployment. Yet here I am on my 1 year anniversary realizing how gracious God is because without that year – I would be taking a simple thing like getting to be with my husband for granted. God has truly overwhelmed me with his blessing.
I am so thankful for the amazing first year of marriage God gave us. It hasn’t been a perfect year – we’ve had our hard times, our selfish times, our hurt times – but despite all the imperfections God has begun weaving our lives together into an intricate tapestry of beauty. I will always cherish this first year, but I am excited for what challenges God brings us this next year!
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