Wednesday's Walk - My Wedding Ring - The LONG story...

So... My wedding ring has a story. A LONG story.

I'm sure you can't believe that. Nothing around here has "a story"... does it?

Ok. Everything has a story. You know us pretty well by now.

The ring that I was given on the day we were engaged was perfect. I LOVED it. Princess cut center stone with princess cut channeled set diamonds down each side.

Jeremy got my ring from an estate jeweler and had it shipped to his mom in Iowa. Then, he and a friend went to pick it up from her the week before we got engaged. Very creative. And exactly the ring I wanted.

But, it didn't have a band with it. Just the engagement ring.

That was fine but we now had to find wedding bands for both of us. and we did. find them. You see, my mom and my husband had, er have, a thing for pawn shops. There was a pawn shop in the town my parents lived in and we didn't have a whole lot of money at the time... so my wedding band is from a pawn shop. As is Jeremy's wedding band.

Again, you know us pretty well and I'm sure you are not surprised at this information.

We were happily wed with my engagement ring and our pawn shop wedding bands.

I have had big dreams of at some point, getting a new wedding band to match my ring. One with princess cut channeled diamonds.

I think I remember saying something like, "Maybe for our ten year anniversary I can get a new band. Ok, Jeremy?"

"We'll see..."

Now, we are about to hit that milestone and after 3 kids, a house, cars, a broken air conditioning unit, and who knows how many other wild expenses you can't even begin to know when you first get married... that new band is not happening any time soon.

But I am fine with that. I love my plain band and I'm not sure I would want anything different.

There was a day, about 2 years into our marriage, that I thought I'd be sweet and get Jeremy a new ring. His is very plain and the gold is quite thin.

I went to the jewelry store, picked one out, spent the money and surprised him with a new ring.

He "liked" it but to this day, he wears his plain one. Why? Because it spins. It spins really well. Like Raymond on that episode where he looses his ring because he was spinning it? It spins like that. Again, you are not surprised.

He has said, "Jen. Keep time. See how long I can get it to spin."

Not long after I attempted to replace Jeremy's band, I took my ring to a local jewelry store to be cleaned.

They did not do it right and somehow, they cleaned off the gold that was holding in my channeled diamonds. I noticed a few days later that my ring didn't look right and so I took it to a different store and was told that I was about to loose the diamonds.

The whole ring needed to be remade. This was ok because I had just had Elayna and my ring didn't fit well anyway. They remade my ring, exactly like before only a little bigger, and that is the ring I wear today.

I love my ring. Both my rings. I don't care where they came from or how I got them... I love my rings. I love our rings. They are us. They tell a story that is SO us.

Why am I telling you all about my ring?

Because I have a problem. Remember, my ring was remade in the midst of my 4 years of giving birth to 3 babies?

Well, now I've lost the baby weight and I'm back very close to what I weighed when we got married.

What is the problem with that? My ring is too big! It slips right off my finger, especially if I'm cold or my hands are wet. Not sure what we are going to do about it yet but I'm sure Jeremy has a plan.

Because you know us well enough to know that he has a plan. The ring story must continue...

What things in your life have a story? Link up your memories right here! I can't wait to read your walks down memory lane.

Wednesday's Walk - The rest of the story...

I have wrote about how we met in a previous Wednesday's Walk post.

But, there is more to the story.

More at the very beginning.

My first days at Central Bible College tell the rest of the story...

You see, my RA, Katie, introduced Jeremy and I.  After meeting me, she said I should meet her friend, Jeremy. She showed me a picture of him and I actually remembered seeing him earlier that day during freshman orientation.

He was such a cutie.

We first met, although Jeremy doesn't remember this part, during a freshman get-to-know-you kind of game. It was some kind of watermelon relay that I thought was completely gross. Nasty, actually. Who wants to eat watermelon after a bunch of freshman? Ew!

We actually talked for the first time when our class took a trip to Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO as part of our first week of school. Jeremy was an RA so he was "in charge" of my group for the trip.

I remember that day because Jeremy broke the rules. Yep.  "In charge" and breaking the rules. We went into some cave and at the entrance they told us to spit out our gum before entering. I spit mine out. Jeremy did not. I think he even teased me for spitting mine out! Next, they told us not to touch the bats hanging in the cave. What does Jeremy do? He touched the bats. many times. loving every minute of it. He even tried to get me to touch a bat... which I did not! That should have been a big red flag clue!

A few days later, the girls on my hall asked me to go with them to a soccer game. I walked to the game with them and when I got there, Jeremy was sitting on the bleachers. He said hello so my friends and I went and sat with him. To this day, he claims I ditched my friends to sit with him. So not true. We have very different sides to this story... I'm not sure where he gets some of his details...

Then, not long after that, I was in the student union with Katie. We were going to get our mail and there was Jeremy with his lunch tray watching TV. He talked to Katie for a minute and then Katie gave me a look like, "Stay here and talk to him." and she said, "I'm going to check my mail!" and then left me standing there. Jeremy obviously didn't get the hint from Katie because he looked at me and said, "Goodbye, Jen."

I had been dismissed. I came around the corner by our mailboxes and Katie said, "What are you doing here??" I told her what Jeremy did and Katie was so mad at him. LOL

Finally, Jeremy asked me out on a date. We were a few weeks into school and CBC was playing Evangel for Friday Night Football. It would be a good game and everyone would be going. He told me that a bunch of the guys were going and bringing their girlfriends. I, of course, didn't know any of "the girlfriends" yet so I was nervous about going but excited that he asked me to go with him.

It was time for Jeremy to pick me up so I waited for him at the door of our dorm. Guys were not allowed in the girls dorms. When Jeremy got there, he led me to the car.

The car was full of BOYS! No "girlfriends". Just BOYS! College senior boys! And, I was the ONLY girl in the car. A freshman girl in a car of senior boys. What was I thinking? What was Jeremy thinking??

There I sat, squished in the backseat of a car next to Jeremy and a bunch of other guys I did not know at all. Jeremy looks at me and says, "Sorry, the girls decided to go shopping instead of the game."

Ok.

So, our first date was spent with a bunch of other guys at a football game with a lovely trip to McDonalds afterwards. I think I got a small french fry and sat very quietly just watching them all.

Another red flag clue?

I did find out later that Jeremy's best friend, Mark, called Jeremy's mom and told her that Jay had met the girl he was going to marry. "She's the one. She has big brown eyes and brown hair," he told her.

We ended up getting married one year later, one year exactly from that day at Silver Dollar City.

This is a picture of us a few years into our marriage at a married couples winter event in our barn at the farmhouse. I was pregnant with Annalise, although you sure couldn't tell under that big coat!

Wednesday's Walk - The Story of Us

I've been wanting to write a post about how we met.

I was one of those girls. Freshman at Bible College who met a guy and got married. I had my "ring by spring". I'll explain in a minute.

This is Jeremy and I on our first outing together. The battery died in my car and Jeremy had a Sams Club membership so he took me to get a new battery. Notice the dirty shirt... he was working on my car. What a nice guy... sigh.

We dated about a month before I traveled home with him to Iowa to meet his family. It was an eventful meeting. First, Jeremy's dad shaved his head right before I met him. You just have to know Rick. Second, Jeremy's sister, Tanya, was giving birth to her 3rd baby the day we arrived. So, we went from his house where his dad had shaved his head to the hospital to meet his sister and the new baby. Jeremy and Jason were having a "brother" moment at the hospital, fighting in the room and on Tanya's bed, making Tanya cry and his mom yell at them. Shouldn't this have given me a clue into my future? I loved them all.

Notice the short hair. The only other time I've ever had short hair. I cut it right before I went to college and spent my entire year of school growing it back out.

CBC is located right by the county fair grounds. We were able to see a few rodeos and even a monster truck show. Here we are by Grave Digger.

For Spring Break, we traveled to northern Michigan, and I mean NORTHERN Michigan... We went to Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula to visit my friends. It was a great time of fun in the snow!

Next came the engagement. We were engaged in April of 2001. It was a beautiful spring day and Jeremy took me on a picnic to propose. We had all my favorite foods - Olive Garden and Cheesecake. Yumm! My ring was perfect, you can kind of see it below. This picture was taken around graduation time at Lamberts - the home of the thrown rolls! Super Yummm!

Here we are at graduation with Jeremy's family.

I didn't start out to be one of "those girls". Well, I did if that means I knew the best place to find a solid, Christian guy who was called into the ministry was at Bible College. I was called into ministry in 5th grade at Kids Camp and then felt called to CBC in my junior year of high school when I visited for college days. I knew I would be a pastor's wife.

The challenge came when Jeremy's friends told me that he was called to be a missionary to Africa. Now, that was never in my range of thinking. I wasn't going to even date a guy that I wouldn't consider marrying.

In my prayer time one day, God showed me Jeremiah 1:5-10 and I wrote Africa and the date by it in my Bible. About a month later, Jeremy was telling him about how he was called into the ministry and that God used Jeremiah 1:5-10 to call him to go to Africa. I went back to my dorm and looked up the verse and there was my note to myself from the month before by the same verse that God used to call Jeremy. Wow. I was so excited but I never told Jeremy about that moment until we were engaged. That moment has been the cornerstone of our marriage. God has called us to be together for a lifetime of ministry and service to Him. When times are hard, and all marriages go through difficult times, I remember that moment and know that God has placed us together for a reason.

I've shown pictures of our wedding before. Now, here we are on our honeymoon cruise.

Three kids, a dog, some fish and a house later... we are the Goodwin family.
I love the saying on our new header - "Beauty is living the life you love."

I am living the life I love with the man I love for the God I love.

And that is beautiful.

For more Wednesday's Walk posts visit Lynnette Kraft.