It’s honestly impossible to imagine that today celebrates 40 years married to this handsome man of mine.  This morning I was thinking back to when he first asked me out.  I was still only in high school and he was just about to start his senior year of college.

Once upon a time Dw visited the church I was attending and he came up to talk to me.  I thought he was adorable.

A few Sundays later he was back and when he saw me he questioned, “So do your parents let you go out with older guys?”  I returned his question with one of my own, “So what are you 30?”  He smirked and said he was 21.  I told him it would be fine.  I was 17 (but didn’t tell him that!).

He was new to the University of Buffalo and this was long before cell phones, Waze, Siri, Mapquest – in fact a correcting typewriter hadn’t even been invented yet!  He asked if maybe he should drive me home from church to see where I lived so he could pick me up the following Friday.

On Friday he called in the afternoon and while talking he mentioned that he had received a letter from his mom.  He continued, “She’s a really nice lady, too bad you will never get to meet her.”  Wait, what?  I still laugh at him saying that.  What a weirdo.  Let’s be honest, men are just plain ridiculous sometimes.

That first date we saw a movie, went for pizza and had a good time. Saturday I actually had a date with someone else as it had been set up before Dw even asked me out.  Sunday we saw each other at church and then spent the day together. That evening he told me he had to drive to his hometown to switch vehicles with his dad and asked if I wanted to skip school and go to his home.  So much for not ever meeting his mom! Ha!   I wasn’t sure what my mom would think but to my relief she was great with it.

The drive was gorgeous and being a city girl who longed every single day to live in the country, I was in heaven!  The old home place was amazing. Of course I was so nervous to meet his parents. We found his mom folding laundry at the kitchen table in the old farmhouse when we arrived and both were pleasant.  Not long after meeting them, his dad went out to the barn and Dw followed him out to talk to him.  In the barn his dad asked, “She’s awful young isn’t she?”  True enough, I was often mistaken for a 13 or 14-year-old.

The day he took me to meet his parents then a picnic at Letchworth State Park not far from the old home place.

It was on that car ride to his home that I began to fall in love with my precious Dw.  We talked, shared hearts, laughed some and just clicked beautifully.  It was so natural.  From that moment on we were a couple.  While dating Dw did not ever bring up the “M” word.  Marriage was too scary to him.  Not sure to this day why, but it was.

One time he asked me, “If we ever were to stay together for a long, long time how many kids would you want to have?”  Well if I had said, “18” (my dream) that might have sent him scurrying.  I wasn’t about to tell him!!  Knowing he has ADD I quickly avoided the questioned and turned it around bubbling back to him, “How many do you want to have?”  He responded, “Four or five.”  And then he forgot he had asked me and he forgot I hadn’t answered him and that was that.  I knew in my heart that God could work with his “four or five” and here we are 40 years later with 14.  We do have our precious four who live with Jesus in heaven and technically that does make 18.   And, of course, we’ll never say never – I mean how could we?  Fourteen is too wonderful to ever say never.

Nineteen months after our first date while in his first year of law school, he proposed and we we were married August 12th, 1978.

My treasured brother Neil walked me down the aisle.  

Our wedding photos crack me up, they’re so ummm 70s!!!  But losing everything to the fire, I’m so thankful we have a few!!

By God’s grace, working as a secretary/bookkeeper I was able to put Dw through the last two years of law school without a loan.  He graduated Magna Cum Laude.  He practiced law in Buffalo for almost 11 years, until we packed it up, moved our then three kids (Abigail, Tyler and Autumn) across the country for him to attend seminary.

While pastoring we brought home Emma, Graham, Liberty, Isaiah, Elizabeth, Elijah, Jubilee and Ruby.  After bringing home Ruby Dw resigned and we settled here in Arizona.  Since living in Arizona we have brought home Nehemiah, Johnny and Birdie.

God has been so very good to us.  No doubt, marriage is hard work and ours has been no exception.  Some seasons have been delightful, while others much harder.  Yet through each season our great God has been astoundingly faithful and no doubt He has blessed us more than we have ever deserved.

So on this our 40th anniversary I celebrate life with this man of mine.  Seeing his smiling face still makes my heart flutter and I can’t wait to do the next 40 with him!

I love you Whitey and I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else.  Happy 40th!!  You are my favorite and no else one has ever come close.