15 years and counting

Today 15 years ago, Josh and I got married in a little rural church in front of about 100 people.  The entire wedding budget - my dress and the rings included - probably didn't top $1,500.  I was 18 and Josh was 19 and we had no idea how we were going to make it through the first year, let alone the first 15!  We went back to our little apartment that was quaintly located over a laundromat and behind a busy ice cream shop called "The Custard Stand" by locals, but it's name was really "Dairy Land" or "Dairy Express" or something to that nature - similar to the Dairy Creme Corner, for all you who live in Fairmont.  Our apartment always smelled of freshly laundered clothes, we didn't have to take our laundry very far to do, and the dryers kept our apartment warm and cozy in the winter.  Of course, it kept it warm and not quite so cozy in the summer too and some of the people who frequented the laundromat resembled people on mug shots from America's Most Wanted!  And we lived around some very interesting neighbors.  There was an elderly couple who lived two doors down.  The wife had dementia or schizophrenia or something like it.  She often would stand in the hallway and give us the evil eye and then when we would go into our apartment, she would accuse us of all sorts of evil!  Her husband was always good for a tall tale, but he was a kind man and was very patient with his troubled wife.  Then we had a couple on the other side that would jam about 30 family members into their apartment every Sunday and it sounded like the walls would simply burst each week.  We needed a computer for college, so instead of going on a honeymoon, we spent every last dollar that we were given at our wedding and bought a computer, printer, and a desk (which barely fit in our little apartment).  The day after we got married, we went to Uno's Pizzeria and splurged - our check was about $32!  I was aghast at spending so much on one meal.  I even circled the total and kept the receipt.  Almost everything in our apartment was either handed down from someone or from yard sales or things we had brought from our rooms at our parent's house.  We had a set of folding chairs and a card table in our kitchen.  A few weeks after we got married a lady from our church, unknowing of our living situation, stopped me in the grocery store and asked me if I would be interested in a table and chairs that she was wanting to give away.  I think I cried after we went and picked them up and we used them until just two years ago, when another friend asked if we wanted their dining room table and chairs.  It was the beginning of a lifetime of God providing for us, often without us even asking anyone else.  For the next few years, while we struggled to make ends meet while going to college, we saw time and time again that help would come from the most unlikely of places and often in the nick of time.  When I look back on our meager beginnings, I am so thankful for them.  We had to learn that we really only had to depend on God and God had given us each other to care for and protect through life's struggles.  Now that we have been together 15 years and things aren't so scant for us financially, it warms my heart to look back and see how happy we were when we really didn't have much financially - and yet we had everything we needed and learned so much that has helped us when trouble has come in recent years.  I wrote in Josh's card this year, "We have grown up in each other's arms and I hope, God willing, that we will grow old in each other's arms too.".  I wrote it before I even thought how profound and beautiful the thought was to me.