Changes

This past week, my husband and I had our first date night in over 6 months to celebrate….

Our 12th Anniversary!

We got fancied up a bit and met in the city for an uninterrupted grown-up dinner and stroll around Oklahoma City’s Bricktown.

It sure was nice to get away from the kids for a bit. And the animals. And… the problems of farm life.

The biggest problem we have dealt with recently was a very stuck tractor, and a very stuck truck.

Still, once dinner was over, we were excited to get back to the fresh country air and the uncrowded roads. Things sure have changed in just a few shorts months. (In college, I had dreamed of living in downtown NYC! Talk about huge difference!!)

I am blown away how much we have changed in the past 12 years, as well. We got married at 20 (go ahead and do the math!) and drove to Oklahoma the very next day. Nathan had already been living in Tulsa, but I was still in Baltimore. Not surprisingly, it took us 3 days to travel those 1200 miles. I was not used to such a long car ride and suggested we stop often!

The first meal I cooked in our tiny little apartment was the first meal I had ever actually cooked, and consisted of boxed rice, frozen fish and no veggies! Now, it’s a challenge to see how many vegetables I can fit into a meal.

We have the obvious additions of gray hairs and plenty of wrinkles. I have stretch marks from the babies, and speaking of children… We didn’t have those when we first started out either. Now we are encroaching on that dreadful pre-teen stage with one of our not-so-long-ago-babies!

The world of today seems rather unfamiliar to me, too….

But, as time flies by I hope we change for the better, and grow toward becoming the people God has called us to be. I pray we become stronger and yet more gentle. Bolder and more loving. That we learn to see through His eyes and not our own.