WOW! I woke up today and had completely forgotten it is our 9th Wedding Anniversary! Jeff and I are so low key about this stuff. Some years we might do dinner, some years we just chill and do nothing but high five one another for another year gone by and a zillion more to go. THIS year, I consider our Hawaii trip to have been our big “HooRah” to celebrate! And don’t yall worry, I’ve got a blog post coming up about Hawaii too! I LOVE telling stories! I feel like I have eleventy million stories to tell and not enough time in the day/week/year to tell them all! Today, I’m MAKING time to tell this one. My husband and I have a story of redemption in our marriage that truly will move this non-emotional chick to some pretty hefty emotions. I’m beyond grateful to God for His divine hand in our lives and our marriage. I gotta say that right up front because without Jesus, we didn’t have a chance in the world! 

Let me take y’all back to the beginning….. well, I can’t take it ALL the way back or this post would be a novel. I’ll tell the FULL story of how Jeff and I met in another post. Basically, I met an incredible chick named Bijoulea at my one semester at Texas State in San Marcos. She introduced me to her friends in Lubbock via Myspace (if you don’t know what Myspace was, you’re too young to read this.) At the end of the semester, I went home for a minute but quickly moved to Lubbock to live for the summer. Now, in my defense, I DID have INTENTIONS of going to school at Texas Tech but we all know that intentions don’t equal action. I had an amazing summer and got to meet Jeff, one of the friends that Bijou had introduced me to. Within 30 minutes of meeting Jeff that day, I got the courage to leave a toxic relationship I had been in off and on since I was 14. I ended up moving home at the end of the summer because it just didn’t make sense for me to be doing odd jobs and go to school when I LOVED being a hair stylist and could make better money at that. Student loans weren’t appealing to me at all so I moved home to Waxahachie. Two years later, I was coloring one of my client’s hair and she told me she met a guy at work that knew me. She had been telling this guy that she was going to get her hair done in Waxahachie after work and the guy said, “Hey! I know a girl from Waxahachie. Her name is Maca.” Of course it was Jeff. I thought it was so fun that my client and Jeff were working together in Dallas and asked her for his number. Shortly after that, I was on a date with a guy that just wasn’t working out. I texted Jeff while on that date, took my date with me to meet up with Jeff and before we knew it, it was just Jeff and I at the bar together. (It pains me to leave out all the fun details, just fyi. One day I’ll tell all my stories in a book.) 

Jeff and I laughed all that night and connected over the fact that neither of us wanted to get married or have children. He ended up asking me to lunch the next day. I assumed we were just friends but a few days later when he came to my new apartment with flowers and greeted me with a kiss, I knew it was official. We began dating and that was that. FOUR months later, I got a positive pregnancy test. I’ll never forget going to the store the night before and Jeff asking if he was a bad boyfriend for not coming with me. Ha! Then the next morning I frantically called him at work and told him that I had “ruined Superbowl Sunday” because now I wouldn’t be able to drink. We were 100% not prepared for this. Halfway through my pregnancy we discovered a massive tick infestation at Jeff’s apartment so we made the decision to move to Waxahachie and rent a home one street behind my parents.

Suffice it to say that getting married TWO WEEKS before my due date was NOT in my original plan for my life. I was large and in charge on my wedding day at the JP office. Ellie arrived exactly two weeks after our wedding date and life got so real at that point. The stress of trying to pay bills with the amount of debt I brought into the marriage, long hours working for both of us, navigating parenthood, unhealthy lifestyle habits, etc. was almost too much. We were fighting a LOT. One of the things that was a constant from the start of our relationship was alcohol. Our first “date” was at the bar and we spent almost every night we could at the bars. We drank to have fun, we drank to unwind, we drank to numb out. On top of the drinking, I was addicted to cigarettes and my ADD medication and definitely realize now that I also suffered from some postpartum depression. I am an extremely positive person by nature. Negativity is not what comes natural but at this point in our lives we were just so unhappy but didn’t know any other way. There was so much lying going on that revolved around finances and drinking. Some nights I would cry myself to sleep wondering if my life was punishment for all that I had done wrong up to that point.

In October of 2010 we almost called it quits after a night of wild alcohol and fighting but I had attended a Ladies event just 5 weeks prior, on our FIRST wedding anniversary, that planted a seed in my heart that enticed me to hold on. I had joined a company in May 2010 that poured in positivity to my life like I hadn’t experienced ever before. At that event I saw women who had been married 18+ years talking about their lives and marriages and how happy they were. They talked REAL about struggles and overcoming. I sat on the very back row of that event and I’m so grateful that I went. The community I found there has been a constant in my life the last 8 1/2 years. We would gradually become more and more involved being around other people who had what I wanted in life. I started reading GOOD books that challenged me in leadership and faith.  Little did I know, Jeff had been house hunting. He started taking me to look at houses and I thought he was insane. We had debt over our eyeballs when this talk started, in April of 2011. We found ONE home that was out of our price range but upon walking in I KNEW it was THE one. Our first home. We ended up getting in a small bidding war but did get the home. Sadly, a few days later we realized out short sale home had gone into foreclosure and was off the market. I believed God would give it to us for cheaper and it was only a matter of time. In the meantime,  I was working hard to help people with their health and finances which led me to be able to pay off ALL of that debt that I brought into our marriage by June 2011 with my new source of income. I replaced my income and decided to come home from doing hair in July 2011 to be with Ellie more full time.

Jeff was diagnosed with testicular cancer in August 2011. The area affected had tripled in size in just 3 weeks so we knew something was up but I didn’t dare mention it. Jeff is a pretty private person and I didn’t want to pry. He basically called me the day of his appointment to let me know he was going to go get checked out and I just said, “okay.” He then called after the appointment to let me know it was cancer and he would have surgery in two days to remove it. “Okay” was about the sum of that response as well. It’s odd to think back at how nonchalant we were about the whole thing. I didn’t ask many questions and wasn’t allowed to tell anyone outside of our immediate family. I didn’t have any prayer team surrounding me and life was to go on as usual. Jeff had his surgery and within days we were at our biggest annual conference for the company that was responsible for changing our lives so much at that point. Neither of us wanted to miss our first time in the Leadership room of that conference. An incentive was announced that weekend from our leaders and friends for a cruise at Christmastime to Cozumel. I didn’t necessarily think I was going to run for the trip but thought it would be nice since we hadn’t ever gone on a nice vacation together and we certainly didn’t get a honeymoon. I dove head first into helping other people get healthy as we were doing the same. Jeff started radiation treatments in September and the same weekend before treatments started we had gone out of town for a different incentive I had earned. Our realtor called that weekend to let us know OUR house – THE house we lost in April – had come back on the market for $20k less than we originally bought it. We secured the home that weekend and came home SO excited! 

Radiation began and 5 weeks later Ellie was turning 2 years old, I was packing our entire rent home up and preparing to move the following weekend. I had to do most of this on my own because Jeff was pretty sick from all the treatments. It was a brutal 5 weeks. We closed on our home the same day I got a phone call that I had earned the trip to Cozumel! We capped off the year with a slight sigh of relief and our first Christmas in our new home. It had felt like the weight of the world was on us the entire time but we persevered even if we had done it not very gracefully. There was still fighting and immaturity going on in our four walls that year but the best was yet to come. A fire was lit in me when Jeff’s work had told him it was an inconvenience for them that he had to take half days off to get radiation treatments. I worked harder than ever for the next TWO years declaring that I was going to bring him home from that job to do whatever it was he wanted to do.

By April of 2012, I had been really moving along in my relationship with the Lord. I was growing by leaps and bounds trusting Him more and learning what true relationship with the Father was like. I quit drinking alcohol at the end of 2011 but I could sense that I was so bound up by my addiction to my ADD medicine and cigarettes and the weight of that was too much to bear any longer. I’ll never forget the night I knew the Lord wanted to set me free from those addictions even though I wasn’t aware of HOW or WHAT that would look like. I poured my brand new prescription down the drain and flipped the disposal on and tossed the cigarettes. I trusted the Lord even though in the back of my mind I assumed I’d wake up VERY upset and missing those things. But instead, I woke up with a new sense of purpose. I never had a withdrawal symptom and have never looked back. I went on a journey to heal my brain through food and healthy lifestyle choices but more than that, MY MARRIAGE began to truly be healed. It was like cutting off the addiction was the cathartic piece of the puzzle that severed the ties to the past and embraced the new future for us. I forgave TRULY. I’ll never forget about a week after getting set free, Jeff looked at me and asked me if I ate something new that made me “awesome” and I realized that was the first time he had said I was AWESOME in a VERY long time. We found our church home soon after that and would continue growing together as we still do today.

I was baptized on August 26, 2012 as an outward declaration of God washing me clean of all my past. I DID succeed in my goal of bringing Jeff home from the job that didn’t value him on August 26, 2013. He got to be at home for nearly 2 years as we worked my business from home together. In April of 2014, Jeff chose to also get baptized and washed brand new! 

The day Jeff began his Fire school journey was when I really saw him light up. There is nothing more powerful than watching my husband get to become fully alive in who he was created to be. He is a servant and a protector. It’s funny looking back and seeing the irony of how he used to talk about being a Firefighter or Police Officer and now he gets to be both. It all worked out in PERFECT timing. He put his Fire School dream off for 2 years to be home with us but he started right when he was supposed to. I’ll never forget sitting in the movie “War Room” thinking of how I had done just that, gone to war in prayer for our family and our marriage. I would literally walk the acre around our home declaring scripture and believing for our marriage and as we were sitting in that movie, Jeff got THE call from THE Fire department he wanted to work for. God is SO cool! Now, tune in to this last little bit, friends. It’s the most important in my opinion.

The Lord has blessed us with two more precious children and we have SO many memories left to make. The first 4-5 years together were ROUGH and we fought through a LOT but it was absolutely worth it. I love our story of redemption! I love every single dirty, yucky, awful thing we had to sludge through to get to where we are today. It makes me more grateful and more vigilant in wanting to protect it all. I wouldn’t consider our faith walks together to be “typical”… I have lots of friends that sit to read the Bible and study together regularly and they talk a lot about deep emotional stuff… that just isn’t us. We have our walks with the Lord personally and we pray as a family. At one point of my journey when I started coming back to faith I would look at other couples and wish for what they had. Can I just encourage you to NOT do that!? DON’T look at your friend and her sensitive husband and wish that your seemingly non-emotional husband would be what that other man is. God didn’t put you with that other man for a reason.   I pray that you would find yourself grateful for the man that YOU have. There were times that Jeff told me I was crazy for my praying, Bible reading and seeking. He didn’t understand RELATIONSHIP because he had only known Religion before. There’s a huge difference. Jeff would tell you what drew him to God was seeing me BE different. I wasn’t pointing the finger at him to change, repent or be more godly. No. I let God deal with Jeff’s heart and I worked on myself more than anything. I became who I was meant to be and in the pursuit of that, Jeff came along. He wanted to be with me and wanted to chase after God for himself. His walk with the Lord is his business, not mine. God is big enough to deal with all that extra stuff. Relinquish control and you’ll set yourself free from trying to be what only Jesus can be in  your relationship. It’s a daily walk and it’s not always pretty. I have many friends going through struggles in marriage and divorce but one thing I know for certain is that God is a REDEMPTIVE God no matter how your story unfolds. It can be a spider web of wrong turns and then turn arounds but no matter what, if your trust is in Him, He’s going to see you through friend! I hope our story encourages even one of you reading this. It’s a NEW day!

Happy 9 Years of Marriage to my husband, my best friend, best Daddy to our 3 littles, the one who champions me in every single wild dream I have. My hero!  The best is STILL yet to come!

Without embracing change and growth, none of this would’ve been possible.