Seven Years and Counting

This year marks 7 years that George and I have been together. We often forget our true wedding date because we secretly ran off and got legally married without telling anyone but my best friend and father one year in March. We were already in the process of planning our wedding, but the funds weren't coming in as quickly as we had hoped, so we had a civil service and planned our wedding for the end of that same year on our actual anniversary (so not to have to remember another date). Our wedding was held on our 4th year anniversary. We consider our anniversary the day we never left each other's side. We met August 13, 2004 and unofficially moved in together September 13, 2004. While both of us maintained our own residences, he was always at my place, or I was either always at his. He helped pay bills at my place, and I bought food and cooked and cleaned his place. We knew then we were going to get married, but we had only known each other for a month, and both felt it a bit crazy to admit how deeply we had fallen for one another. George will always admit he found his wife the moment he walked into that classroom where I was sitting. I didn't become his wife when we faced the clerk in that civil ceremony one day in March, but I became his wife before I even met him.
Proverbs 18:22 says he who finds a wife.... thus meaning I was ready to be his wife when he found me. The preparation for becoming a wife doesn't start when you meet someone, when you are engaged, or God forbid when you become married. I had just truly submitted myself to God, thus ready to submit and commit to my husband to be. While George and I may have drug out the process for becoming legally married, God had already ordained and called us to marriage with one another. I am so blessed to have a friend, partner, and husband to share my life with. May God continue to keep us.