16 Years
My first concrete memory of EA Ferree was the night I turned 19. We had met before then but when you get chucked into a lake with a person that memory tends to take primacy. It was tradition at Furman—the college we both attended—for one to be forcibly thrown into the campus lake on his or her birthday. When my time for this ritual came, our mutual friend Justin remarked that E.A.'s birthday was 3 days away. Two birds, one stone, a bigger splash.
It was probably half a year later before I would have thought of EA as a good friend. Another four or five months after that when I started falling hard for her. Summer after our sophomore year, I did such a horrendous job asking her out that she had to ask for clarification. Three years, 2 months, and 16 days after the lake, we got married and that was 16 years ago today.
I was 19 when this amazing woman came into my life and now I am 38 and change. We crossed a threshold. We have now been part of each other’s stories for over half our lives. For some reason, it is wild for me to reflect on that. It becomes more difficult to remember life before EA and I cannot imagine a future without her.
I feel fortunate that my timeline is taken up ever more by EA Cox. Words do a poor job expressing how grateful I am for her. She is not my better half. We are each our own people, thank you very much. But she has made me a much better whole.
Her love for me is a daily gift and has been a lifeline to me so many times. Her belief in me has pushed me to take risks that I would not have on my own and has encouraged me to put in the work to grow. When I am with her, when I hold her hand, when we talk in the evenings in our back yard, it grounds me.
There is no one else with whom I would rather eat dinner with each night. No one else with whom I would rather experiences the joys and frustrations of raising kids. No one else with whom I would rather go on adventures. No one else with whom I would rather navigate this beautiful and frightening world.
That 19 year old kid had no clue how much he would love that girl or how his story would become intertwined with hers. What a gift that he got to and I get to experience it each day.
I have a new office in our home and one of the things I am enjoying is decorating the space. I have placed books, Lego sets, and Funko Pops on the shelves. My wall has photos of family, places that I have traveled, artwork my siblings have given me, diplomas, etc. Across from my desk on the wall, hangs a cross that we got from a church in Reykjavik and a small colorfully-painted tile depicting Assisi. On the floor beneath them is the one item in here that I haven’t yet put up: my certificate of ordination.
I was ordained as a minister ten years ago today. It was a step with which I struggled for awhile. My Baptist roots fostered in me a firm belief in the priesthood of all believers. If you say that you are a follower of Jesus, then you are a minister. So the hierarchy implied by being called “Reverend” made me feel a little uncomfortable. I did not use the title for myself often unless I was writing my Congressperson. Despite these qualms, I did ultimately pursue ordination. I am glad that I did. I am just not totally sure what to make of it now.
I don’t serve as a vocational minister anymore; not in a church, not as a chaplain, not in some sort of parachurch organization. I am an Administrative Assistant in a hospital Spiritual Care department. In fact, I haven’t even attended a church service in maybe a year and a half save an Ash Wednesday service that I snuck off to at the beginning of Lent. I did officiate a wedding in a church over the summer; an experience that I loved and was very meaningful for me. But I don’t really know what to do about that ordination certificate. Or church.