"Oh, I can't stand that Matt Sills! He is such a jerk!" I uttered those words quite frequently my 9th grade year. That Matt Sills had a major crush on one of best friends and ended up being the boyfriend of another best friend and I couldn't stand him. Little did I know some 4 short years later I would be married to him. My, oh my, how quickly things can change. Life is funny like that!
That change was slow in coming, because he was a year behind me in school and we weren't around each other for a full year. For a while, he was forgotten. That all changed my 11th grade year when he came to the high school and I saw him every day in band. Slowly, we became friendly and then friends of a sort. By my 12th grade year, we gradually became even closer friends.
The week before school was to be let out for Christmas, a bunch of us decided we would all go out to the movies that weekend. We began to make plans. I was hoping another boy would be going out with us, but I was torn between him and what I was feeling for Matt. It just so happen that God had different plans and His ways are mysterious. The weekend plans wound up being a double date with one of my best friends, the boy she liked, me, and Matt. The rest as you say was history. We were almost inseparable from that night forward. Two months later, we exchanged class rings and were going steady. Three months in, we were ready to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. However, my parents saw things a little differently and started limiting our time together.
As the school year was coming to an end, my parents insisted I get a job to start saving money for college. Though they had never insisted before, I looked at it as an attempt to limit more of our time together. I graduated and the time for me to go off to college was drawing near. We knew we were about to be separated and we really didn't like the idea. We wanted to get married, but knew our parents would object since I was going off to college and Matt was starting his senior year in high school. We knew of only one way to force their hand and let us get married ~ to get pregnant.
A month into my freshmen year in college, I was pregnant. We waited until October to tell our parents and by November we were married. We had gotten what we wanted, but life wasn't going to be that easy for us. In January, I went into early labor and our little girl was born. She was born way too early and her little body just wasn't ready for life. She fought hard but her small body just couldn't make it. She died 3 days later on Matt's 18th birthday.
Life smacked us in our face and it smacked us hard, but we believe God allowed our little one to die to draw Matt and I closer together. I know that may sound cruel to some people, but to us it wasn't. That doesn't mean we were angered, or resentful, because we were, but in order to survive we had to accept it and move on with life. I believe her death drew our hearts closer together and made the bond between us stronger.
Over the years with a lot of inward reflection, we have shared our story with others. We tell people we know God meant for us to be together. He had a plan for us and our life, but instead of waiting on His plan to come to fruition, we went with ours. We tell them we know we committed a sin by having premarital sex and by defying our parents. We now know that they are consequences to our sin. While we don't believe our daughter's death was a punishment, we do believe it was a consequence. If we had waited until the end of Matt's senior year to get married and get pregnant, there would have been a drug they could have given our little one that would have helped her little body fight better and increased the chance of her survival.
God has been at the center of relationship working things according to His plan from the very beginning. We have veered off that path a time or two, but He was still working in our lives. With each passing year, we strive to grow closer to God and to let His light shine through us. We try at all times to keep Him at the center of our love. With His help, we have such a bond between us that we often finish each others sentences and have the same thoughts. We have learned to laugh during the hard times, to set aside the angry and forgive, to resist the urge the wring each others neck when we are at odds, and to face things together. Matt has become my best cheerleader and worst critic. He tells me like it is and can speak to harshly to me at times, but through all the ups and downs, I know I am loved. He is my heart song and my soulmate. I am complete when I am with him. He is me and I am him.
This weekend, we will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. The 29 years have flown by, but they have been wonderful because we have spent them together. Happy Anniversary, Matt Sills! I can stand you now and can't imagine my life without you in it!
Simply in love with my soulmate and simply the better for it!
That change was slow in coming, because he was a year behind me in school and we weren't around each other for a full year. For a while, he was forgotten. That all changed my 11th grade year when he came to the high school and I saw him every day in band. Slowly, we became friendly and then friends of a sort. By my 12th grade year, we gradually became even closer friends.
The week before school was to be let out for Christmas, a bunch of us decided we would all go out to the movies that weekend. We began to make plans. I was hoping another boy would be going out with us, but I was torn between him and what I was feeling for Matt. It just so happen that God had different plans and His ways are mysterious. The weekend plans wound up being a double date with one of my best friends, the boy she liked, me, and Matt. The rest as you say was history. We were almost inseparable from that night forward. Two months later, we exchanged class rings and were going steady. Three months in, we were ready to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. However, my parents saw things a little differently and started limiting our time together.
As the school year was coming to an end, my parents insisted I get a job to start saving money for college. Though they had never insisted before, I looked at it as an attempt to limit more of our time together. I graduated and the time for me to go off to college was drawing near. We knew we were about to be separated and we really didn't like the idea. We wanted to get married, but knew our parents would object since I was going off to college and Matt was starting his senior year in high school. We knew of only one way to force their hand and let us get married ~ to get pregnant.
A month into my freshmen year in college, I was pregnant. We waited until October to tell our parents and by November we were married. We had gotten what we wanted, but life wasn't going to be that easy for us. In January, I went into early labor and our little girl was born. She was born way too early and her little body just wasn't ready for life. She fought hard but her small body just couldn't make it. She died 3 days later on Matt's 18th birthday.
Life smacked us in our face and it smacked us hard, but we believe God allowed our little one to die to draw Matt and I closer together. I know that may sound cruel to some people, but to us it wasn't. That doesn't mean we were angered, or resentful, because we were, but in order to survive we had to accept it and move on with life. I believe her death drew our hearts closer together and made the bond between us stronger.
Over the years with a lot of inward reflection, we have shared our story with others. We tell people we know God meant for us to be together. He had a plan for us and our life, but instead of waiting on His plan to come to fruition, we went with ours. We tell them we know we committed a sin by having premarital sex and by defying our parents. We now know that they are consequences to our sin. While we don't believe our daughter's death was a punishment, we do believe it was a consequence. If we had waited until the end of Matt's senior year to get married and get pregnant, there would have been a drug they could have given our little one that would have helped her little body fight better and increased the chance of her survival.
God has been at the center of relationship working things according to His plan from the very beginning. We have veered off that path a time or two, but He was still working in our lives. With each passing year, we strive to grow closer to God and to let His light shine through us. We try at all times to keep Him at the center of our love. With His help, we have such a bond between us that we often finish each others sentences and have the same thoughts. We have learned to laugh during the hard times, to set aside the angry and forgive, to resist the urge the wring each others neck when we are at odds, and to face things together. Matt has become my best cheerleader and worst critic. He tells me like it is and can speak to harshly to me at times, but through all the ups and downs, I know I am loved. He is my heart song and my soulmate. I am complete when I am with him. He is me and I am him.
This weekend, we will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. The 29 years have flown by, but they have been wonderful because we have spent them together. Happy Anniversary, Matt Sills! I can stand you now and can't imagine my life without you in it!
Simply in love with my soulmate and simply the better for it!
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