Kyle and I will celebrate 29 years of marriage this June. We met on an old school bus on the way to what what Aggies call Fish Camp in 1990. Fish Camp is a summer camp intended to teach incoming freshmen the traditions of Texas A&M, as well as provide an opportunity to make some new friends before school starts. Kyle was a junior and serving as a counselor. Kyle‘s version of the story is that after our first 5 minute conversation, he told his buddy on the bus, that he was going to marry me. Unfortunately for Kyle, that was the only conversation we had during that few days of camp, but we did “happen” to run into each other 4 times over the next 4 months, and on a campus with 40,000 other students, that has never felt “accidental” to me…Our sixth meeting was our first date, Oct 5, 1990.

Over the past almost 32 years we have experienced lots of ups and downs. Growing in intimacy requires really allowing someone to know you, to experience all of you and often these experiences are messy, clumsy and scary. In many ways Kyle has come to know me, as I have come to know myself. Parenting our five children has been a big part of me learning to know myself. Parenting has been hard work. It has opened up many places in me that are tender and confusing and I am thankful that I have had a safe place with Kyle to explore those tender places. This is not always easy and usually requires levels of intensity that leave Kyle feeling quite uncomfortable, but we have stayed at the table and it has paid off…

On this week’s episode of the Mamas Well Podcast, Kyle and I “get real” about our marriage and some of the many, many things we have worked through and continue to work through, as we launch some children out into this crazy world and at the same time, welcome some in. Relationships can be rough, especially under stress. Learning to navigate that stress together is critical. I hope you will be encouraged by this conversation on marriage and parenting and at the very least, have a little chuckle on us!

Audio only

DEEPER DOWN THE WELL