Life is Like a Song

Wow. How fast time has flown by. It seems like just a couple months ago Nic and I stood in front of one another, our family, our friends and our Lord, reciting our marriage vows to one another. Vows we made for the rest of our lives. But here we are, one year later. One year more in love.

Of course, all this week, Nicole and (especially) I have been more nostalgic and cheesy. Saying all the usual lovey dovey things to one another. Asking the usual inquisitive romantic questions, like, "What are your favorite memories so far," or "Has it been what you were expecting?"

To answer the latter question first, it's been better than we were expecting. I mean, we both had high expectations, but our first year of marriage has been so much more fun, easy, joyous, exciting and blessed than we could have ever expected or hoped for. God truly knew what He was doing when He brought us together. While we know it won't always be an easy road, we're thankful that the mountains are more like plateaus and the valleys more like brief dips.

Now, the first question was one we smiled about as we thought of our individual responses and eventually answered each other. Obviously, the big memories make the list, like our honeymoon, the holidays, finding out Nicole was pregnant, summer vacation, shopping for our baby when we found out "it" was a "she," the birth of Riley, and so on. But it's not just those that make marriage so wonderful. Rather, it's the little things. It's the fact that even one year later, my wife still blesses me by packing me lunches and writing funny and never-repeated names for me on the brown paper bags; today I'm "one righteous dude," in honor of Ferris Bueller. They're the memories of me looking forward to coming home every Friday night for us to go enjoy our date night. It's the memory of our weekends sleeping in together, curled up under the covers playing footsies. Memories of me getting to care for my pregnant wife when she felt nauseous. They are joyful, beautiful, even "small" treasured memories that constitute my answer to that seemingly simple question.

And now, here we are. We can actual answer in years instead of months when asked how long we've been married.

On the night of our anniversary, after a weekend of celebrating, Nicole brilliantly decided we should start an annual tradition: dancing to our wedding ceremony's first song. Holding each other and slowly spinning in our bare feet to Etta James' At Last, I lost myself in Nicole's arms and quietly leaning on the song's lyrics:

At last
My Love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song...

How true those words are. Thank you, Nicole, my love, my wife, my best friend, my hero, my lover, my desire, my better half for making them true. For everything. Especially for saying, "I do."

Our Oh-So-Cute Story

We met in early 2004 and slowly came to know one another over a long and interesting period of time. We were both happily dating other people when we first met, but after a year spent together at church, and an occasional double date with our then-current significant others, we came to deeply appreciate and admire each other. If someone had told us then what would happen in the future, we never would have believed it—we had never held even a remotely romantic thought about one another—until... one fateful rainy day.

Nicole's lease had ended, so she announced in our home fellowship group that moving help was needed, and Jonathan was happy to pitch in. Not having consulted weather.com, moving day was gray and wet. Yes, the furniture was soaked, but even though it rained and poured, being his usual self, Jonathan livened up the mood and made Nicole laugh out loud all day long. That day, something clicked and we realized something big was happening. It only took a couple of weeks before we began officially dating, but soon a romance developed that we had never before experienced. We were smitten.

And on October 22, 2005, still in deep smit, we were married. But as you'll find out from reading this blog, marriage was just the beginning.

This Marriage Thing

RegardingUs.com is our attempt at letting our friends, family and the occasional strangers in on our marriage—the joys, the frustrations, the humor, the sadness, the adventure, the scares, the trials, the mushy gushy lovey dovey stuff, and more. Of course, we can’t share everything, but we'll try to be as open as possible.

“Why,” you ask? Well, there are three reasons. First, we want to keep track of the lessons we have learned and have a central place to visit and be reminded of every step of our romance. Second, we’re new at this marriage thing, and we know that others are new at it or will be new at it soon enough. We want to share the lessons of love we learn and hope to facilitate conversation among almost and newly married couples to keep love alive and encourage the bond of marriage before God and the world. Lastly, we know a lot of amazing couples who are not in any way new at this marriage thing, having been married for ten, twenty, thirty, even forty or more years. We very much hope and pray, for our sake and other newly married couples’ sake, that those who have gone through the highs and lows of marriage—the richer and poorer, the health and sickness, the better and worse—and stood the test of time would be open in this forum and share all that they have learned.

So, whether you’re about to be married, have been married a short amount of time, or are a marriage pro, please join us as we begin the rest of our lives.