I am so happy that I have been able to move on enough in my life to meet and marry my soul mate. I know a lot of people say these things and I am risking being incredibly cheesy, but I really feel that he is the right person for me. I was in a bad way when I met him, not sure if I could trust anyone enough to enter a relationship. I had just had an on-off relationship with someone who wasn't sure of his own feelings, the first relationship I had attempted after the abuse, and I wasn't sure how I could meet anyone normal / sensible / ready for a relationship. I had had a few years of the disconcerting feeling that I wanted someone to be kind and romantic, being attracted to various people who weren't interested and finding that I was too scared anyway. I was convinced I was unlovable and too messed up in the head for anyone to really want me, and yet I kept finding that I was still a romantic at heart and wanted to be loved for being me. I was also convinced that because nobody would want me, I would never be able to become a mother, which had been a dream of mine since childhood. I became angry at people I knew who were having children, and horribly jealous. It was very difficult and I remember praying that God either send me someone to marry or take away the desire to have a child as I just couldn't understand why he would give me such a strong desire for something that would never be able to happen.
Being introduced to my husband by some lovely matchmaking mutual friends was a big risk for me. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea but decided that I had nothing to lose. I had known my friends for a while, and they had known my now husband for over eight years and so I decided to trust their judgement and exchange emails and facebook messages before meeting so I could suss out what he was like. I prayed about it a lot and asked for advice from family and friends before deciding to actually meet him, but once we met, we hit it off so easily and so amazingly well that it was hard to believe we had only just met. Finding someone who I could truly relax with was awesome, and I still can't believe that I have someone so much like me who believes in me so much.
Our wedding day was just what I always wanted. Simple but lovely, with all the people I could have wanted there, with the exception of my grandparents, who sadly had passed away before they ever got to meet my husband and see me find happiness. We chose the hymns that mattered to us, including 'Be Thou my Vision', because for us, the service was the most important part. I will never forget walking into the church and seeing so many lovely people there wishing us both all the best. The reception was fun too, but it was the service that really mattered to me. I wanted to give thanks to God for bringing me to that point in my life, from the bad times to the good ones. The reading we chose was significant too. My ex had always used scripture as a weapon to make me do as he wanted, especially Ephesians 5:22-24, which says that wives are to submit to their husbands. However, for our wedding we chose this passage but put it in context, so had the reading from verse 21 to verse 33, and from The Message translation. If you're not familiar with the passage we chose, it starts by saying that everyone should submit to one another out of love for Christ. It then says wives are to submit to their husbands, but husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church (in other words, be prepared to die for her). It was really important to me to reclaim this passage for its true meaning.
This doesn't mean that I promised to obey my husband in our wedding vows. Submission and obedience are two different things. I'm not going to go into this here as its quite complicated, but needless to say, it was my decision to have this reading at our wedding as a sign to myself and to everyone else that I was free to make my own choices in this relationship.
And of course, just over a year and a half later, we had our daughter and I had no reason to be angry or jealous of my friends or family any more for having their children. I had always felt guilty for feeling that way anyway. I sometimes find parenting really hard, but it's a journey I am very glad to be on.
It's nice to be able to write about positive anniversaries after the unhappy remembrances of April. I'm trying to remind myself to look at the more recent past and enjoy what I have, and to look forward to the future too.
I make no apology for how soppy this post has been, by the way!
