Meaningful Musings

With each passing day I watch my daughter transform, grow, and learn. In a matter of no time she went from barely crawling, to crawling all over and getting into things, to now making attempts at pulling herself up onto everything.  And as a witness to these moments that I so cherish and am happy to be able to witness firsthand, I find myself – from time to time – thinking of my own growth and maturity; especially in the past three to five years.

I dwell fondly, and with most attention, on my time with A.

The introduction of his presence into my life was perfect. At the time I had recently let go of some heartache and was trying to find myself again. (If you’re reading this, you know who you are ;) ). Thankfully, that heartache turned into a good friendship that is sometimes reunited.

Anyway, all of that to say that A and I became interests and good friends in a brief amount of time. As our friendship grew, so did our love for one another. Our faith in God grew as well because of our time spent together; therefore, our trust in His timing and plan for our lives also had to grow.

Well, five years later and we still sometimes fail to trust God’s plan for our lives. Just yesterday evening we were pondering where we would be if we weren’t married or had baby girl V. It is a question that I (probably all too often) am always dwelling upon as it wasn’t my plan to have a baby so soon after marriage. But A and I always come to the conclusion that it was perfect timing and that we are so happy to be where we are now.

The reason I wrote this post is because lately I have been thinking about our engagement photos and the couple we were before marriage or starting a family occurred. Sometimes I forget what life, our relationship, and even I was like before the big events, but it doesn’t do much good to dwell on them too much anyway. With the excitement of marriage just a few months away, we were so ready to begin life together. Little did we know what was in store for us! All good things, of course!

Here is the specific engagement picture I have been thinking about –

This shot is just outside the Academic Building (AB) on Aquinas College’s campus. We decided to take pictures on campus because that’s where we first met (specifically in English class in AB), it is the place we identify with most, the campus has beautiful locations, scenery, and greenery, and it would also be where we would get married – at the small chapel on campus called Bukowski Chapel.

In fact, just a few steps away from where this picture was taken was where A first hugged me. Of course, preceding the hug was a greeting of “dude” which at the time struck me as an odd way to address a girl, yet I also felt as though the greeting was reserved only for people of great importance. With his outstretched arms and warm embrace, I was assured that his greeting was that of deep friendship. I would come to know that such a greeting was common amongst his group of friends and that it wasn’t at all out of the ordinary to be addressed this way.

Who knew that three years later we would be standing in the same spot - not on purpose by photographer or us; I hadn’t even thought about it until I began writing this post! - as a newly engaged couple, excited for our day of engagement photos and the prospect of marriage (and the rest of our lives together) in six months? (These photos were taken at the end of June 2013)