Tuesday, March 13, 2012

25 Things You Don't Know About My Husband



Go on, admit it. You clicked on this link because you thought I was going to give you something scandalous and salacious, didn't you? Well I'm not going to do that... but I will tell you 25 things you don't know about my husband. After my last blog post (25 Things You Don't Know About Me), I decided to do a follow-up post about my husband. If you read this all the way through, I guarantee you'll learn something about him.

1. He wore a suit and tie to kindergarten most days.

2. He had wavy, golden blonde hair until he was about 4 years old (and it was long, because his mom didn't want to cut it).

3. His favorite pair of shoes as a child were pink Converse high-tops.

4. He met and started dating his future wife (me) when he was 14 years old!

5. He was a freshman in high school dating a senior. His friends thought he was cool, and mine thought I was crazy.

6. Six months after we started dating, he bought me a tiny diamond "promise" ring, using money he made working as a bag boy at a local grocery store.

7. For my high school graduation, the two of us took a trip (by ourselves) to New York City. I was 18 and he was 16. It was only his 2nd time outside of the state he was born in (Florida).

8. He didn't get any questions wrong on the math portion of his SAT. And he earned the nickname "Rain Man" when he worked in Calvary Chapel's accounting department because of his crazy math skills.

9. His original major in college was Biology (for a pre-med track), but after the first year, he switched it to accounting because it was much easier and he didn't have to study much.

10. He gave his life to Jesus, got baptized (in the Atlantic Ocean), and proposed to me all at the age of 20 years old.

11. When he proposed to me, he sent me on a scavenger hunt throughout our city. Each clue was a poem written by him and left at a location that was special to us (the restaurant of our first date, our church, a lifeguard stand on the beach...). The final stop on the hunt was a movie theater, where he had our song playing, pictures of us on the screen, and roses at my reserved seat. He emerged with a ring and asked me to marry him.

12. He was as actively involved in planning our wedding as I was. He made many things by hand, stayed up all night putting our programs together, and he even got buckets of sand from the beach to use in our decorations.

13. He had a specific moment in college while stopped at a red light where he felt a clear and specific calling to be a pastor. The crazy part was that he had not yet given his life to Jesus, so it didn't make any sense to him. (Two years later, he gave his life to the Lord and began working for a church/ministry.)

14. He's been actively involved in ministry of some kind ever since. His biggest passion in life is to see people come to know Jesus and to help them grow in a relationship with Christ - especially children. He preached his first sermon in September of this year, and he loved it.

15. He is a "helper". He loves to serve people. He will drop what he's doing at any time to help anyone with anything - rain or shine, winter or summer, day or night. And he enjoys every minute of it.

16. His most embarrassing moment happened while we were in Africa for two months serving as short-term missionaries. He was battling stomach problems from eating African food, and had an 'explosive' episode as a guest in someone's home, whose toilet happened to be broken (unbeknownst to Luke). It was literally a scene right out of the movie 'Dumb & Dumber' (those of you who've seen the movie will understand). This post may be TMI, but I couldn't resist. And trust me, I left out the gory details.

17. Although he likes sports, he doesn't pay much attention to them. We're college football fans, so he catches most of the Gator games, but other than that, he hardly ever watches a game of another kind, with the excpetion of an occassional Monday Night Football game. He has missed many Super Bowls and World Series to do something fun with me or the family.

18. He gives me a foot massage every night, usually at the end of my shower or bath, and he doesn't do it half-hearted. He uses lotion and everything.

19. He leads our family in 'family devotions' (and Bible discussion) at the dinner table 3 nights a week. And he puts the kids to bed and prays with them every night.

20. He makes it a point to go to bed with me every night. He doesn't believe in doing things seperately. We even watch the same TV shows so we're not in seperate rooms of the house at night. He tells me at least once a day that I am his best friend and that he loves spending time with me. He is an incredibly loving and affectionate husband.

21. Whenever the kids are sick, HE is the one to stay up at night with them and clean up vomit, etc. (Like I said before, he is a servant and takes joy in letting me off easy.) He also gets Jonah ready for school each morning and drops himm off.

22. He is a "preaching junkie". He loves listening to other pastors' sermons - no matter their style or denomination. And he enjoys visiting other people's churches for fun.

23. He wins every game he plays. Board games, billiards, mini golf, Scrabble on the iPad... it doesn't matter. If it's a game, he is winning. I beat him at mini golf once on our honeymoon, and he has never gotten over it. But he used to let me win at pool when we were dating in high school. That's how I knew he loved me, because he doesn't let anyone win - ever.

24. He can rap Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" in its entirety, and he does it every chance he gets to do karaoke.

25. He has a huge heart. He loves his wife, his kids, and pretty much everybody on the planet. It takes a lot to make him mad. In fact, in 18 years of being with him, he has never once raised his voice at me. Ever.

25 Things You Don't Know About Me



Occassionally I read 'US Weekly' magazine for some mind-numbing entertainment (don't judge me). Amidst the celebrity gossip and the latest news on 'The Bachelor' there is a section called '25 Things You Don't Know About Me' where someone famouse reveals their 25 things. I was reading one the other day and thought to myself, "could I come up with 25 things people don't know about ME?" I don't know that they exist. My life is pretty much an open book, and I consider myself to be fairly transparent. But am I? Or do I share selectively and hide the things I don't want people to know? Am I good at masking the secrets that make me vulnerable or are painful to reveal? As I contemplated, I realized that my husband knows everything there is to know about me, and some close friends/family know most things about me. And the rest only know what I choose to display. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Not everyone needs to know our deepest hurts, our biggest fears, or our most intimate details. I use discernment when I share myself, and all in all, I still think I'm pretty "knowable" (transparent).

I was still challenged by the thought of coming up with 25 things people don't know about me that I'd be willing to share... so I put pen to paper and began to think. This is what I came up with:

1. My parents divorced when I was 2 years old, and though I was very young, I still bear the scars of that seperation.

2. I gave my life to Jesus and was baptized at 8 years old, even though my parents did not know Jesus before that and my dad staged a protest of my baptism and tried to talk me out of it.

3. That same dad gave his life to Christ almost 30 years later (in his 50s) when I brought him to church. And now he convicts me with his discipline to study the Bible and tell others about Christ.

4. I went to a Catholic middle school and got an 'F' in religion because I argued with my teacher and refused to do work I disagreed with.

5. I was a cheerleader in school, but I got kicked off the team for bad grades.

6. I drove my mom crazy by being a poor student in all of grade school. I was more interested in my social life at school than studying.

7. I was such a bad student that my parents warned me often that I would never graduate or get a good job. Ironicaly, I became an excellent student in college and made the Dean's list many times. I graduated from the University of Florida with a 3.5 average (probably just to prove them wrong - I'm a bit stubborn, but everyone knows that about me).

8. At 15 years old, I told my mom I was going to a movie with a girlfriend and sleeping over at her house. I really went to a club in Miami Beach with some random guys I didn't know (and that girlfriend). We missed curfew that night, but we used the excuse we got caught at a long train. It was worth getting grounded for.

9. I was the world's biggest Pearl Jam fan in high school, and I came late to my step-grandmother's funeral so I could go to the Lalapalooza concert to see them.

10. I met and started dating my husband in high school at 16 years old.

11. I knew after 6 months of dating him that I was going to marry him.

12. I was a competitive gymnast as a young girl, and I quit gymnastics to take up dance (ballet, tap, and jazz). I continued dancing into my mid 20s.

13. My husband and I gad our first 'real' date at a restaurant called Lester's Diner. Six years later, he proposed to me by sending me on a scavenger hunt around town. One of the places I had to go to get my next clue was Lester's Diner.

14. I love to travel. I've been to 42 out of 50 states in the U.S. and also many other countries and continents (Africa, the Carribbean, Mexico, Canada, England, France, Switzerland, Austria, and more).

15. My husband and I took our 4 year-old son to spend two months in Uganda, Africa living at an orphanage. It was one of the most amazing, life-changing experiences I've ever had.

16. When I had my first child, I arrived at the hospital already 9 cm. dialated and delivered with no epidural. It was horrific.

17. When I had my second child, I arrived at the hospital before even my first contraction and got hooked up to the epidural right away. It was blissful.

18. I have a Bachelor's degree in Health Science Education, and I teach Reproductive Health (sex ed) part-time.

19. Right after college, I did outreach education for the health department in the ghettos of south Florida, where we walked the streets and taught prostitutes and drug addicts how to prevent STDs and HIV/AIDS. This sometimes included showing them how to use a condom.

20. I have a huge fear of rejection. I will avoid rejection at all cost, even if it means never going after something that is not a guarantee.

21. I have two recurring dreams - one is that I'm on a plane that crashes, and the other is that I show up for my final triginometry exam in college and because I never went to class all semester, I don't know the material and I fail. I wake up relieved that I did in fact graduate college... and I am deathly afraid of flying (although I fly all the time).

22. I have been to Disney World close to 100 times.

23. I have a passionate love affair with food. One of my favorite places to go on a date with my husband is the Melting Pot. I also love Thai food, Italian food, Mexican food, and... who am I kidding - ALL food. The only thing I won't eat is chicken livers.

24. I LOVE studying and teaching the Bible, and I have big dreams of writing books, speaking at conferences, and teaching God's word all over the country. But since I fear rejection and allow my insecurities to overwhelm me, I don't know how I'm going to make those dreams come true.

25. There are a lot of things I like about myself and a lot of things I don't like about myself. I am a work in progress, and I ask God to change me on a daily basis.

Wow, that wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I think that once we start giving it some thought and peeling back the layers of our hearts, there is a lot more to us than we think. I desire to be a more transparent and genuine person who openly shares myself - good and bad - with others. It's not easy, but it's good.