Six years ago, I had just started dating my husband. I was young in every sense of the word. How we came together at the right time and in a way where we watched grace and maturity grow is seriously a testament to God’s sovereignty.

Four years ago, I was getting ready to get married to my wonderful husband. Four years ago, I was decorating the hall, doing make up and hair, snacking as much as possible, doing photos, and doing it with hustle since I picked a SUPER early wedding at 1:30 pm (thanks, Bro, for getting married at 10:30 am and making me look like I was a GENIUS!). I had spent a few weeks being nervous but never doubting my decision.

And today, four short years later, I look back and man, I don’t remember that girl. I look at our wedding pictures. She looks young. And rested. And so beautiful. And so happy and in love and all of the other things you’re supposed to look on your wedding day. But I don’t remember much about her. She worked too much and thought she knew stuff.

Then again, she thought she knew stuff two years before that.

And probably for at least five years before that.

A week or so ago, a friend from high school posted a status on facebook and after 30 replies, someone said “If someone had told us we’d all be Suzy-homemakers by the time we were 30, we would have told them they were crazy.”

I have a confession to make right now: I did know I wanted to be a Suzy-homemaker at 16. We had to write a paper in English class on our career. I gave some serious thought to writing it on being a stay-at-home-mom, knew I would get made fun of and then, starting making plans to have a career that I felt balanced with being a mom.

Over the years I cried, and laughed, and messed up a lot, and begged God to show me what He wanted me to do because a skill set in foreign languages really isn’t that broad unless you’re willing to travel.

But I knew. I knew all along that He was growing me and shaping me and preparing me for THIS. THIS is the life I lead every day – messy, exhausting, loud, busy, beautiful. God had planted that desire in my heart, and yet, sometimes I laugh out loud at the fact that 16 or 17 year old me would not recognize 27 year old me.

And I could not be more thrilled about that.

First of all, I have learned so much about how God grows us. How our journeys look differently. How grace is so intertwined into our relationships and our actions.

Second, I have seen the desires of my heart come true. And not because God just gives us whatever we want, but because I have aligned myself with Him and so the desires in my heart are what He has grown in me.

I look back over the times in my life where I thought I knew stuff and I laugh. I now try to acknowledge that I don’t know stuff, not really, I just keep trying to move forward.

That bride in those wedding pictures doesn’t look so young anymore. Two pregnancies in the last four years has aged her from looking 17 to looking almost 30 seemingly overnight. She still works too much but now it’s on laundry, dishes, cooking and cleaning, and trying to fit in business and ministry and friendships.

She’s exhausted but also so full of joy. Because JOY is a choice.

I always struggle with the question of “Think back and remember why you married your husband.” I wish I had written it down. I know some, like that I knew he had a great faith and would be a good leader, husband, and father, and that he was just enough different than me to keep things interesting and challenging.

But I don’t remember the specifics.

And I’m ok with that.

Because like JOY, LOVE is a choice.

And I choose to love him now for reasons I didn’t even know about when I met him, or when we got married. Things I could have maybe guessed but until I saw them, I didn’t know.

I married a moving target. And so did he. The fact that we keep choosing to love each other is a testament to God’s sovereignty and His grace.

Now, the reasons why I am married to him in the present are so clear. Will I remember them in 4 more years (and God willing) a couple more pregnancies? Will they be as changing as that bride in the pictures on the wall?

Beautiful in a whole new and different way, glaringly similar to the past, but so changed and so shaped that the past seems hard to pinpoint?

I don’t know.

I hope so.

My hope and prayer for my marriage is that grace and joy would grow more and more and that God would continue to direct us down a path that could only be ours because no one else would be crazy enough in our special way to do it just like this.

I’ve known for months that my anniversary would fall on a Thursday and that I would write this post. I had no idea what I would look like.

But here I am at my table, a little choked up.

Psalm 127 says: