Holy cow, guys. Remember me? It's a new season once again, one of new growth and big milestones and adventures.
It's been one year of marriage with the love of my life. A year since the seemingly endless wait (how short it was!) to start life with my bestest friend and the adventure of our life's calling together.
That day dawned in the most perfect spring morning and I remember feeling more excited and more serene than I could honestly comprehend. All sorts of hilarious things went wrong (more on that later) and everything was so perfectly beautiful and through it all I was so intensely aware of the love pervading everything.
Christopher's love, lighting up my world and making me feel like an Empress. Our friends and family, whose helping hands crafted our wedding into a thing of beauty and simplicity and contagious joy.
It was all over so soon and we were heading into our future as Us. We. Together. He was my husband. This was our first day of that beautiful story that the Lord had written just for us before time began. Everything we had experienced up to that day was preparing us to be a force united for life. Truly the Lord's love surpasses all.
It's been a crazy beautiful year. Not glamorous - no big move, no intercontinental travel yet - but all that we've accomplished together still amazes me. I can't wait to see what our future holds with the foundation built this past year.
Lots of work. Long afternoons and nights at Karate strengthening our bodies, impacting lives, making lasting relationships. Can I just say watching my husband teach is the hottest thing ever? His resolve and patience and fearless leadership melt my heart every. Single. Time. (Don't get me started on his rippling pectorals.) Moving our Karate school to our own building and all of the long nights and strategizing involved. Learning to work together as a team. Exploring trails and eating picnics on docks after nightfall. Sewing Etsy orders at the kitchen table and Star Wars marathons by our first Christmas tree. Lots of prayer. Lots of belly laughs and crying and enough kisses to get to the moon and back (we checked). Crafting big, big dreams. Making out, sleeping in, target practice and kitchen disasters and brilliant culinary triumphs - honestly, married life can be pretty close to that meme you've seen that says it's basically a sleepover every night with your best friend. Only better. There have been disappointments and revelations. Knowing and being known. Failing but always overcoming. Grace abounds.
Right after the new year, while celebrating fresh beginnings and dreaming about all our next journey around the sun might hold, the life changing moment came when we discovered we had a tiny passenger along for the adventure.
This month we celebrated our first anniversary and my first Mother's Day 23 weeks pregnant. The joy of carrying this miracle, this soul being knitted in my womb, this still-so-tiny life that made me a mother is indescribable. Surreal, but as little cumin (our cute human!) is learning to kick, punch and backflip more every day, less so. Feeling that precious baby so near to me, moving and growing and yet so mysteriously hidden, and knowing that this was planned before the foundations of the world make the tears flow in sheer gratitude at God's love and power.
The further along this journey, the more I'm enlightened to the tremendous sacrifice, privilege, weight, joy, sorrow, and calling it is to be a mom. All that my mother and all the mothers that have gone before have contributed to shaping the world is thrown into perspective like never before.
I'm humbled by the gift of my marriage and our tiny family blossoming. So imperfectly perfect.
The choices we're faced with every day together - to love harder, forgive more fully, work more purposely, seek Christ more passionately - is the greatest adventure.
Photo cred: hubby + self timer
In other big news, I'm working on getting the first new collection in over two years into the shop! This new season in my life called for the right clothes (that fit!), and this oh so comfortable number is the prototype to a new collection of formal and maternity gowns and tops that magically fit and make you feel fabulous. Win!
Stay tuned for things to come.