i never wanted to be a minister's wife

Shawn and I both attended and graduated from a small Christian college in Kentucky. So many things about the world of Christian college are absurd, not the least of which is that many young women go to these colleges to get their "MRS" degree.

See? There's even a clever little name for the absurdities.

But me? I was different. I was going to get my Counseling/Psychology degree, and plow straight through to my Master's in counseling. Then I'd work in a private counseling firm for a few years. In my plan, I'd meet the love of my life in my late 20s...we'd date for a bit, get married, and then have kids. Once we had children (when I was in my very late 20s or early 30s), I'd start a private practice out of my finished basement (that was a part of my very expensive home) - a la Jason Seaver.

This was my plan, and I pursued it with tenacity and stubbornness. This plan very purposefully excluded getting my "mrs." degree and most especially excluded marriage to a minister. See, most of the guys at my small, Christian college were planning on going into ministry and to me, marriage to a minister meant this:

...having to keep my hair up in a bun, learning to play the piano, being required to be at the church every time the doors were opened, and having to learn to bake at least thirty different kinds of casseroles.

In college, my hair wasn't long enough to put in a bun, I played guitar (but only in the solitude of my room or during section devos), and I struggled to boil water correctly. Minister's wife-ery? Not for me.

Even worse was the thought of youth minister's wife-ery. Most of the guys I knew who were majoring in youth ministry were basically big kids who wanted a job that meant they never had to grow up. They were the guys always breaking curfew, trying to sneak beer into their dorm room, and throwing water balloons from the top of the dorm. The thought of having to answer to elders or submitting to church leadership was nary a thought in their little self-obsessed brains. To them, youth ministry meant lots of pizza, a cool haircut, and finding a vague coorelation between the game "knock-out" and Jesus.

Just listening to those guys complain about the no earrings for guys and hair length rules got under my skin...much less marry and do ministry with any of 'em.

I can count on one hand the times that I saw Shawn my sophomore year of college (his freshman year). He was working in the cafeteria one Saturday morning. My thoughts? "Wow. That's a lot of hair underneath that bandanna." We had a class together second semester. My thoughts? "Hey, that guy knows Audra." During RA training week, we had to do these ridiculous team building exercises. One of them included getting several people to jump through a long jump rope at the same time. My thoughts? "No way is that guy fitting under that jump rope. He's like eight feet tall."

So you can see that Shawn didn't make too much of an impression on me early on. And truth be told, I didn't make too much of an impression on him, either. I can say with confidence that Shawn actually noticed me even less than I noticed him that year.

So how did we get from barely noticing one another to this?

Well, Jude needs to put down for a nap, and I have a million things to do around the house today, so the answer to that question will just have to wait for another post.

Until then, please enjoy this video of Jude wearing a band-aid for the first time: