Leveling Up
Now that the foundation is set, it's time to take things to the next level.
The day after our anniversary in October, Alex and I got away for a few days to celebrate.
Lots of sleep, sun, rest, amazing food, a good show, time together, a spa day (his first and apparently not last lol), and the most incredible conversations about our marriage and family.
If you are ever in Las Vegas I highly recommend The Magician’s Study (in addition to all the incredible Cirque Shows!)
Conversations about those 2 years of hard work, paying off. All the fruits we are seeing have made it all worth it. Through blood, sweat, and tears we have combined families and ways of life. We challenged ourselves to go deeper than we ever have as people, spouses, parents, lovers, friends, and more. We challenged our kids to trust us when we made decisions and trialed and errored our way through the unknowns to where we are now.
That journey of these two years was one of the most demanding things I went through as a person, as a wife, mom, and daughter of God. (And a lot of those demands are still very present…) I know it was a lot for Alex and the kids, too. We were all stretched in emotional/physical/spiritual capacity, all under the banner of God’s will for our lives. Through discernment, a lot of which I don’t have time to unpack in this letter, I knew without a shadow of a doubt Alex and I were supposed to be married, that our kids were meant to have us both as parents in this new season of our lives. I knew our marriage and family was for each one of us and our happiness, holiness, and ultimately our salvation. Could God have worked it all out another way? Sure, of course He could! But He chose this way and our two families becoming one was born of His incredible Providence. (Plus, how could I not marry that man lol)
I really do want to take you into those 2 years, sometime. I well up with tears of joy and exhaustion thinking about them - thinking about the hard work, intentionality, humility, mistakes, healing, memories, and bonds of love that occurred. Those same things still occurring now. I am so proud of all of us. I simply cannot imagine my life without our now 7 kids, I can’t imagine who I’d be without Alex and the ways God has used this marriage to take me to the next level. I can’t imagine how our kids would be without this family. I mean, again I know God can do whatever with whatever and we all probably would’ve been fine, but together I see us rising so much higher.
Facing who we are and what we want to be…
And now that the foundation of our family has been set, now that trial and error has come to an end, it’s time to take things to the next level.