Recently Sally and I celebrated an anniversary.  Not the anniversary of the day we were married, but rather the anniversary of the day we met.  It was 25 years and 2 days ago that a mutual friend introduced us to each other in the Red Room of Ludwig Center at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, IL.  I knew that day that SHE was the girl I would marry.  I wrote the date down that night on a piece of paper and placed it in my wallet.  It was our “meet cute” and it’s a great story.  Of course it was over a year later that we were actually engaged.  Why? (Here is another story with embedded stories.)

1) I was a legalistic, arrogant jerk.

2) She was still pining for her high school sweetheart.

3) She broke up with me seven times (it was a VERY harsh but highly effective personality modification program).

4) I was a legalistic, arrogant jerk.

5) I finally got the message thanks to the Lord’s moving and Sally’s patience and methodology.

Our wedding and honeymoon have some interesting stories:

1) The relative who promised she would not attend the wedding because another relative despised her…then she showed up at the last minute, causing a HUGE fracas.

2) The mad French-Canadian.

3) The possibility that we would be arrested as international criminals.

4) When Sally called her sister crying and they thought I had beat her (nope, still the fault of the mad French-Canadian).

5) Sally’s discovery that after two roller coaster rides I am approaching the Hurling Threshold (and if she wants to ride a lot more she needs to bring a friend with an iron stomach).

I’ll bet some of you are curious to hear details about one or more of these stories.  I’m not sharing them here as that’s not the point.  Here is the point, shared stories make us unique as a couple and they can be an encouragement to those couples coming along behind us.

Over the past few weeks we have three couples in our lives that have lost their spouses.  They had stories as well.  I know that some of their stories were shared with others and helped in various ways.  Now I realize that some stories are for just the two of you, but think about how by sharing you might be able to show another couple the ways the Lord carried you through something difficult or perhaps just odd circumstances.

I challenge you to share a funny or encouraging story today!

PS:  Just for fun, I’ll bet you have some sayings or references that are inside jokes between the two of you.  A lot of these come from movies or TV shows.  Common selections are Friends, Seinfeld, The Princess Bride, Monte Python, etc.  I’ll give you three of ours that are NOT common and see if you can guess the source of one or more WITHOUT using the Internet to look them up.

1) “I care greatly for Fruit Loops.”

2) “Sonia is itchy, SCRATCH HER!” (Russian accent).

3) “I think you are a smarty pants.” (Lilting cadence, Middle-Eastern accent).

Love you all!

-Troy