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Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

December 4, 2013

When it's not the end: The story I never thought I'd tell

Today, I’m a guest writer at my friend Alison’s blog, concluding her months-long series Nothing So Broken. When she asked me back at the end of summer to participate, I wanted to say “yes,” even knowing that saying “yes” meant telling the story I never thought I’d tell.

It’s a love story, and like all good love stories, there’s plenty of conflict. But there’s also hope and grace and forgiveness.

It begins where most fairy tales end: with a wedding.

We stood at the altar, him and me, making promises, pledging our troth, nodding in agreement as our pastor and friend counseled us to lean not on our own understanding.

I was 29. It had been a decade of watching most of my friends get married and begin to have babies, wondering when it would be my turn. Ten
years earlier I had given my life to Christ, and I had expected him to find me a prince worthy of a happily ever after. I had waited what felt like a very
long time, but when I met Phil, I knew from the start something was happening.

Read the rest of the post here.

Filed Under: faith & spirituality, Marriage Tagged With: fairy tales, guest blogs, happily ever after, marriage, nothing so broken, redemption, telling stories

Reader Interactions

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    February 14, 2014 at 7:08 am

    […] Ours was almost reduced to ashes once, and I never want to be there again. […]

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  2. When you can’t go back and you can’t stay here | Living Echoes says:
    May 12, 2014 at 7:01 am

    […] The Story I Never Thought I’d Tell […]

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  3. This one’s for the single people | Living Echoes says:
    May 26, 2014 at 7:04 am

    […] written before about marriage, how it wasn’t what I expected nor did it fulfill my every longing, so I won’t repeat those messages […]

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  4. One thing you can do to change your perspective | Living Echoes says:
    October 6, 2014 at 7:05 am

    […] he was attending. Phil had helped organize the event, which was funny to me at the time because our marriage was still in recovery from massive hurt. But a lot of good came from that day, including our connection with a counselor who helped us get […]

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  5. When the falling was easy and the getting up is hard | Living Echoes says:
    November 3, 2014 at 7:01 am

    […] say our family experienced a fall seems an understatement. Like saying Humpty Dumpty tripped. I’m not sure I realized at the […]

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  6. What we really need when we’re suffering | Living Echoes says:
    May 18, 2015 at 7:01 am

    […] I do not know physical suffering, but I have known emotional suffering. The battle was not for my  body but my mind, not for a sick kid but a marriage in need of healing. […]

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Hi. I’m Lisa, and I’m glad you’re here. If we were meeting in real life, I’d offer you something to eat or drink while we sat on the porch letting the conversation wander as it does. That’s a little bit what this space is like. We talk about books and family and travel and food and running, whatever I might encounter in world. I’m looking for the beauty in the midst of it all, even the tough stuff. (You’ll find a lot of that here, too.) Thanks for stopping by. Stay as long as you like.

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