Welcome
Hi Friends!
This is Taylor writing from behind the computer screen and onto yours! I have been working for April Maura Photography going on a year now and could not be more excited about it. In the beginning, I was a Facebook follower of April’s work and one day my fingers were scrolling the mouse and my eyes fell on one of her posts. She was on the search for a Marriage Blogger. My heart skipped a beat or two as I thought, “well maybe just maybe this is something I could do to help me learn and grow in this passion for writing.” Shortly after here comes the flood gate of doubt and uncertainty:
“No…I’m not a writer, I hardly received “A’s or possibly “B’s” on any of my college papers.”
“How could I write a blog…let alone a blog about marriage.”
“What do I know about marriage? We’ve only been married for 3 years.”
And yet, there was this tiny open flame (picture a pilot light) that remained lit in my heart about this writing thing. I felt like there was so much to write about.
So was I going to let fear completely blow out that remaining flame or was I going to be okay with it being a small insignificant flame and allowing that to simmer? I think you know the answer…
Here we are a year later, having written two “Marriage Series” and starting our third…and this time I feel like I want to open up more about my own marriage while going through the next book. The book we will be going through is called, “What Did You Expect?” by Paul David Tripp. I have been anxiously anticipating this read for a long time. The reason being is because my own marriage experienced what Tripp writes about. We realized after two years we had expectations on our marriage we didn’t even know were there. Through constant communication we were thankfully able to identify this, but for awhile we both were uncertain of what was really going on.
We are believing that this Marriage Series: “What Did You Expect?” is going to be a place of refuge and a place of grace for your marriage and will bring encouragement, rest, and a mutual understanding of such an intimate/complex union. Often times it feels like our own marriage is the only marriage that has this or that going on. This series is here to say that your marriage is not alone, there is nothing new under sun, and our marriages always have hope.
A Little Bit About The Wild Family
Jordan and I are coming up to 4 years of marriage this February. We have had a whirlwind of an adventure that we will never forget. We both come from athletic backgrounds. Jordan and I played professional basketball together in Australia after college for three years. After our time in Australia, we made the move to Germany for a new opportunity with a new team. In that transition, I decided I no longer wanted to pursue basketball. Since then we have gone back and forth to Germany for the past two and a half years. Most recently we decided to come back to California to be near our family for the next several months.
When Jordan and I first got married we had our 7 day honeymoon and a week later packed our two bags (each), got on a plane, and flew to Australia for seven months. There was so much change that happened in a matter of 2 weeks. We just made the biggest commitment of our lives, will be living with someone we have never lived with before, and will now move to a foreign land.
“We totally got this!” is what our 23 year old mindset was before entering into all this change that we were completely unaware of. Our only possessions as newlyweds were what we had in our 4 suitcases. 7 months later we were back on a plane to California. We were home for a couple months going back and forth between families only to leave back to Australia. Once again tagging our 4 bags along the way.
We have lived in this “back and forth” and this constant “in-between” stage for all of our marriage. Between Australia, California, and Germany and back again. Reflecting at all of our moves and constant transitions, we have been forced to have hard conversations. We have had to allow change to have its effect on us both and had to be intentional about “our” time.
When change happens there is a level of grief that comes with it. It usually means we are leaving something behind or missing something. It’s scary and it’s hard. What Jordan and I didn’t know about each other was how we would respond to this constant sense of grief. It has taken several years for us to finally understand that the way I respond to change is not how Jordan responds to change and vice versa. We didn’t understand this for the first couple years of our marriage and it purged a lot of hard stuff out of us. (and still is)
Transition has moved our hearts to grow in ways we never imagined. From living this life of temporary residency wherever we have been to desiring familiarity and stability. We had unrealistic expectations going into our adventure of travel. We thought it would look and be a certain way and realistically…it didn’t turn out that way. We weren’t prepared for what was to come. But now that we know we actually have expectations all the time whole new conversations have opened up for us in how we prepare for our future together.
We are currently in another transition process of living near our families for several months while on the search for a home and jobs in the U.S. This has been our most challenging season yet. However God has been so kind to walk us through so many changes already that this one has our faith stirred in the best way possible. Faith has been and will continue to be our plumb-line. We mutually long for a faith to believe in the waiting, to believe God has us exactly where are suppose to be, and to believe in our confident living hope for what is to come.
Credits:
First Portrait: Sarah Hilvers Photography
Second Portrait: Debi Spencer-Zerby Photography
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