10 Year Anniversary: Start With the Ending. It's the Best Place to Begin.

Note: My bride and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage in September. I've known her 18 years. That's 3 years more than I have not known her. In the weeks that we approach our 10 year anniversary, I'll be posting mental photographs of the development of our relationship.

There is a great song by David Wilcox titled "Start With the Ending." The concept is that relationships would be much better if you just started from the ended where you didn't care what the other person thought about you. That way, you could lay everything out in the open.

Tammie and I had an early ending towards the end of high school. The short version of the story is that I wasn't ready to be in a relationship. While I knew this all along, I ran from the reality for three years as we quasi dated. This made the ending very emotionally painful for us. 

We barely talked my freshman year of college. I was at Rhodes and she was 600 miles away at A&M. After a year of barely talking we bumped into one another at an event. I remember the conversation being fun and, in no way, awkward. I remember having a conversation later about how great it was that we could be friends again.

Fast forward to spring break of my sophomore year. I decided to drive over to A&M to see some friends. Tammie was one of the many friends I was planning on visiting. But something terrible/amazing happened. Everybody bailed on me. I came down during midterm week and everybody had to study. That is to say, everybody but Tammie had to study.

So there we sat, at a coffee shop, catching up. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. She had grown into a completely different person while we had been apart. We both had matured as people and as followers of Jesus. I fell in love. Again.

I didn't want to mess up our friendship. Besides, I thought she was dating a pro baseball player. I decided to start calling her again. I bought a phone card on this wonderful new invention called the internet. I started calling her once ever couple of months. Then we started talking every month. Then we started talking every two weeks. Then we started talking every week. Before long, we were having hour long conversations about life, Jesus, and the intersection of the two. Something wonderful was happening. 

To be continued...