The Security of Our Story

Hearing our love story gives our children the assurance that they were meant to be.

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in
your book before one of them came to be”. Psalm 139:16, NIV

Carrying plates to the table, mashed potatoes and gravy piled high, I watch as my teenage boys plop down in their chairs. Peeling black paint reveals my secret – the original white enamel. I smile, remembering this was the first piece of furniture their dad and I bought together.

We’ve sat around this table sharing stories and meals with these two boys for almost two decades.

Tonight we’ll sit and talk and linger longer. No homework to finish or friends to meet. Cell-phones and emails won’t distract.  Their five-year old sister won’t interrupt. Although she would love to be part of our special occasion, she isn’t fond of sitting still. So tonight it’s just us four.

We’ll have dinner and dessert, and our favorite flavored-coffee as we celebrate our twenty-year wedding anniversary.

I want to reminisce about the details of our story. I want to tell our boys how we met. How I knew their dad was the one I wanted to marry. How I knew he was the man God wanted me to marry.

I’ve scripted the scene and the dialogue. I know there will be eye-rolls and resistance, but I also know they will {remember} this.  And I want them to remember. This. Our story. Their story.

Much to my surprise, both Joshua and Andrew start asking questions. They want to hear more about the time we planned a hiking trip with friends, when we were “just” friends, and no one else showed up except us. They ask about the first year we were married and why we couldn’t afford cable t.v.

They want to hear our story. And I am surprised.

Reminisching about how we met and why we decided to get married seemed like just a fun way to celebrate … but I think it goes deeper.

Our love story tells our children that we are not only husband and wife, but we are also friends.

Our love story gives our our kids assurance that we really love each other and we’re committed to staying together ~ no matter what.

Our love story helps our children see their beginning while adding laughter and security to their everday in-betweens.

And even if ours isn’t the happliy-ever-after story we hoped for, it still has meaning in our child’s life.

As a teenager, I asked my mom to tell me how she and dad met and why she liked him, more than once. Although their love story ended in divorce before I was two-years-old, hearing their story always made me feel like I was meant to be.

I wonder if that’s why  my teenage boys leaned in and listened.

Hearing our love story gives our children the assurance that they were meant to be. After all, without our first date, there would be none of the wonder that followed – the love, the wedding, the dog, the kids, the memories. All because their mom and dad fell in love.

Here’s a fun and easy way to share your love story with your children. Print out these eight questions, cut them into strips of paper and put them in a conversation jar. Then let the kids take turns asking them:

• How did you guys meet?
• Why did you “like” each other?
• Where did you go on your first date?
• How did you know (he) or (she) was the one?
• What is the craziest thing you guys did together while you were dating?
• What was the most embarrassing, funny or unexpected thing that happened at your wedding?
• Where did you live the first year your were married?
• What did you guys like to doing together before you had kids?

– Renee Swope
www.ReneeSwope.com