11th Anniversary

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary.

Since we started dating at fifteen and are now thirty, we've officially spent half of our lives together. This year is also important statistically because we pass the median length of marriages in the United States (which some studies say is eleven years).

The best aspect of our relationship is the quality of communication we have. Shannon and I are best friends and we've learned to discuss absolutely everything. Even with things we would rather avoid, we've acquired a knack for confronting them head-on. Parenting, personal feelings, disappointments, expectations, the plot-lines of our favorite TV shows… it all gets discussed.

It helps that we had to talk eight hours in the car every weekend for the first four years we were married as we drove to my ministry from college. That's a lot of time in the car to discuss our future and how we would respond to various challenges. We would (and still do) play out hypothetical hurdles in life and plan for how we would overcome them. And this puts us on the same page time and again.

In the end, it's our practice to actively, aggressively, and thoroughly talk about every aspect of our relationship together. And that has made all the difference.

I love you, Shannon.