Part One ~ Beginnings

Progress comes from looking at where we’ve been. Looking back.  To the seeds that were planted in those early years.  This is our beginning. Over fifteen years ago Roelof and I met at a greenhouse that we both worked at.  I didn’t know much about him only rumours that had been passed on to my ears by people who were too busy focusing on other peoples lives.  I tend to want to come to my own conclusions about someone rather than letting the influence of others experiences taint my own picture.  What I thought was intriguing about him is that he always listened.  He gave people his time.  He offered thoughts and advice that made you challenge your own way of thinking. He was a friend.  He was kind to me and the many other people in the greenhouse.  He became more than a friend to me a couple months after another relationship in my life had ended. Roelof and I started dating on summer solstice in 2003.  In those first few months, our story started weaving together. He had been in rehab. Alcohol and drugs. He came from a broken family.  And more. Big things to digest in a short amount of time. The naive, young, stubborn me, passed over these things and accepted him as he was. Humble. Open. Different. Loving.

Those first few months moved fast and by Thanksgiving we were headed out onto a new road, a road of marriage preparation.  We were married on a cold July day, our wedding being done simply and the only way we knew how. Our home church, a school gym, surrounded by our family and friends, with homemade wine on the tables and tailgating happening in the parking lot. I was 19, he was 27. Even writing that age has me gasping at how young I was.  At the time, I thought I was so mature, experienced and ready.  We were thrown right into married life. Roelof started his undergrad eight weeks after we said our I Do’s. 

We had so little money in those days. We survived off of sidekicks, chicken nuggets and spaghetti. I was working an entry level secretary job at the university that Roelof went to. Our rent was cheap. We had one car. We worked at the greenhouse on weekends to scrape tuition money together.  Survival.  Those four years passed by in a blur. At work I was surrounded by seasoned people who taught me so much. They taught me how to care. How to open myself up. They taught me about gratitude. Pressure builds.  Expectations rise. Deadlines don’t stop.  Those four years were a learning curve for both Roelof and myself.  This was his first experience with higher education and having to strive for something greater than himself.  He had messages from a person that mattered in his life that he wasn’t good enough for university. That he couldn’t do it. Seeds of doubt and failure planted early on.  We entered into university with a thought of Roelof becoming a teacher or possibly a youth pastor. We left university with a two month old baby girl and a moving truck bound for Grand Rapids, Michigan to start his studies to become a pastor.   

When I think back to our beginnings I feel that life was simpler. Maybe I was choosing to be more unaware. Ignoring situations. Leaning too heavily on how I knew things. Not knowing how to process thoughts. Not knowing who I was.  The big things were present then so early in our marriage. I know they were because of where we are now. Somehow they were managed or unknowingly accepted.  

Our story is a story of alcoholism and so much more. But more importantly our story is a story of God’s love- His greater love, His continual forgiveness and His underserving grace.  We share our story because its been given to us.  Its been woven into the fabric of who we now are.  Its brought us down roads we don’t want to be on.  Its been stirring inside my heart for over fifteen years. This story has been silenced by people.  By fear. By perfectionism.  By us.  Our story is definitely not over. In a lot of ways its just beginning.  We are on the ride of our lives right now.  But God’s hands are woven in, and through and all over us right now and we feel his Spirit moving in our hearts so boldly that we are ready to share our story, our hearts, with those who have open ears and gracious hearts. 

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10