I am a lifetime Montanan, and for almost all of my life I have been in the tiny and scenic town of St. Regis. I grew up with two older brothers, and my parents who were common law married. My parents separated when I was eleven. My alcoholic mother left me and my brothers with my Dad, a Vietnam Veteran who suffered from PTSD and alcoholism as well.
Growing up in a small town of less than 500 people, I didn’t see the darkness and despair of our area until I was older. My hometown struggles with high unemployment, poverty, abuse of all kinds, alcohol, drugs, domestic. The kids here often grow up on their own, and that was certainly the case for me. I left my home when I was fourteen, to escape from much of what I just listed. I lived with friends, hopped around from house to house throughout high school.
My saving grace, literally was finding the Lord at Elohim church camp when I was eleven, the same summer my mom left. I asked Jesus Christ to be my personal Lord and Savior, to forgive me of my sins, and come into my heart and change my life. And He did. And He still is every single day. Just after I had turned 15 I found my other source of hope and pure goodness in the world, Christopher. We started dating on a rainy Friday in May. 5-21-04. I asked him out on one those fancy graphing calculators, (a T-89), our young and distracted algebra class had turned these devices into note passing machines. Little to the knowledge of our teacher, Mr. Moyer, the man who would marry Christopher and I four years to the day later.
Chris and I had very explosive, scarred, unstable, and often unloving childhoods, and yet God was able to create a solid ground for us to build a marriage we had no clue how to create. So for the past six and half years Chris and I have spent every week finding new dates to try out, whether he plans it, or I do, or we’ll plan it together. From the very beginning we knew how crucial it was for us to continue dating each other after we said our “I will’s”, (no I do’s in our vows). We know from a brief experience of how boring married life can get without these special days, evenings, hours together. I pray that with my words, and my suggestions, and my hilarious pictures from our own dates, I will cultivate a desire in your own marriage to date again.
Please do, let me know how it goes…
datenightwesternmontana 