Beginnings and Endings

(I promised my friend, Amy, this post... but hopefully it'll be enjoyable for everyone to read as well. We always love hearing how people, friends and couples alike, meet!)

Five years ago yesterday, on a surprisingly warm fall evening in the mountains, Joe and I got hitched. Said, "I do." Became "Team Martins." We pledged before God, family, and friends to be by one another's side until death do us part.

But it all began, two years before that, with a little Tennessee orange.

Through circumstances only He could arrange, Joe and I ended up at the University of Tennessee doing our grad work at the same time. Not only that, but we both paid for our degrees through assistantships with the Department of Housing. Since Joe had been with the program one year longer he was assigned to be my buddy. You know, to show me the ropes. Some have said he took his job very seriously. A lifetime of seriously, in fact.

There was our first meeting over lunch when I came for campus interviews; I later found out he had warned any of his RA's that if they so much as talked to me, he would get them fired. There was that first phone call after my arrival to campus where he sweetly stumbled through an invitation... if, uh... well, in case you're into it... you see, I go to this church. Then there was Camp Rocky Top (please click on "Rocky Top" from our music selection to get the full effect) where he lent me his favorite, to this day, gray camping shirt and we took a prophetic picture with our beloved Traci (She would be the one who insisted, after knowing us both, that we were indeed buddy material. Later she would be the one to direct our wedding!)
After that came housing training where it was all but written in the sky that a DTR (Define. The. Relationship.) talk was needed. So it happened, on all nights, after the UT tradition of Lip Sync. Twenty four hours of no sleep, "singing" and dancing like fools, and some bad stage make-up. What? You don't believe me:
All I can say is, it's a tragedy I don't have incriminating evidence of Joe in his broadway number. Tragic, I tell you. Someone out there surely must have video footage?

Anyway, following that performance I got a knock on my apartment door. This was something neither of us had expected, me on my fiercely independent kick and he ready to go back to Virginia at the end of the year, but it was something neither of us could deny. We stayed up the next twenty four hours really getting to know each other. Pictures and stories. Stories and pictures. When we heard the birds chirping outside we headed to a nearby battlefield monument overlooking a lake. Joe took my hand while we watched the rest of the sun rise and we both remember thinking, "This is the one." When my RA's spotted us holding hands in the University courtyard they broke into applause and many shouted, "Finally!" or "We knew it!"

The next months were full of memories and laughter. Full of praying together and pushing each other deeper in our faith. Full of adventure and romance. They were also full of spiritual warfare that attempted to break us apart. You can guess who had the last say on that matter. Hallelujah!

And so on a cool and windy Valentine's weekend Joe got on one knee surrounded by twinkling city lights, blown out candles he had relit about a hundred times, and a book he wrote me and wondered if I'd be his wife.

...YES!

What we really wanted in a wedding above all else was to be in God's house with those we cherish. On November 22nd, 2003 we had our "Celebration of God's Faithfulness," as we called it. We'll never forget so many things. Like the way my Dad encouraged Joe as he gave me away, how my Mom saw to almost every detail with her own two hands, how so many from Joe's side traveled from as far away as Ireland to be with us. Like how, starting with our friends standing with us on that night, the church was lit by only candlelight while everyone sang, "Amazing Grace." How sweet was that sound.


Soon it was time to bring on the dancing, the skits, the food, and the fun. Late into the night we were off. Sparklers and dwindling luminaries to lead the way to, ah yes, the honeymoon! Now five years later we can say, bring on the rest of this our journey. Just please make sure it really is until side-by-side death do us part.

Thanks for sharing in our story as you read this. In this season of Thanksgiving, blessings to you and to everyone for whom your story is grateful!