Gray clouds rolled in, darkening the sky and casting a shadow over me. The warmth of the sun was shoved away by a cold current. It began to suffocate me, constricting my lungs with a death grip. The colors in the leaves, drained, leaving behind dull, thickening scabs still semi damp with the heat of pain radiating from underneath.

I quickly found myself sitting in the bitterness of winter, my skeleton hurting from the cold. Wind daggers slash my skin, butchering my attempts to keep everyone warm. Being the one everyone relies on for safety and warmth, I have no choice but to extend myself as far as I can.

I am house and I am home.

****

The second quarter of our time together was a bit rocky yet also the time of most growth, both individually and together. A week before Christmas, Mari and Deonte had a difficult situation arise in their relationship and when you live with other people, it’s hard, sometimes impossible, to hide things that happen. Especially things that cause a lot of emotional tension and irritability. When we sensed something was happening, we approached them. This opened up many opportunities to either be vulnerable or resistant, we all chose vulnerability and thus our relationships grew. We began to have more open and candid conversations with each other sharing things about our personal lives that may have not came up otherwise. We assured them that we are on their team no matter what. During this time, the Medlocks were already engaged and receiving pre-marital counseling, so taking advantage of this, they decided to bring the situation to the pastor who was giving them counseling. They began working through it, digging deeper into learning what it means to be a godly marriage. I like to think of this time as a “cleaning out the gunk” phase. It was a time when the groundwork for a fresh start was really being laid down. This is when all the challenges began to be confronted and tackled. Debts started to get paid or greatly reduced, and although our goals still looked far away, we knew important foundations were being constructed. Although this was a time of accelerated growth, few words can describe the things that happened except for the fact that this was all an act of God.

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A Word from the Medlocks

Me and my husband, who was still my boyfriend at the time, hit a rough patch in our relationship. We was able to forgive and recover our relationship and make it strong again. We started paying our debt which was $16,000 worth of debt, we paid it all. Yes a young couple on the right track. Once my husband found the job at Amazon we got started on our goals ASAP.. pay debt, and started saving and budgeting. We did that ! 🙂 lol and even became more closer with Gabe and Danaë as we started learning more and more about each other.