I'm quite a bit older now, then the day I became Mrs. Mark Grayczyk. I was a very young, naive girl at the time. (Barely 19) All I knew was, I loved this young man and I wanted to be his bride and raise a family together. Little did we know, what lied ahead of us when we spoke those precious vows to one another.
I had no idea what I was committing myself to. I thought I was cool playing house. I should have known from day one, it was going to be a rough ride.
Mark and I were already living together at the age of 17. Neither one of us was working. We survived off his Soc. Sec. check that he was receiving from his fathers death and selling drugs. We lived in a basement apartment at the time which cost a whopping $199/mth. We didn't care, we were "in love." Partied 24/7, we thought life was grand. 6 months down the road, Mark had fallen very ill. and came close to death. He ended up being hospitalize for 6 weeks. When he had walked out of the hospital he was a walking skeleton, 60 pounds lighter with 9 feet of his intestines removed. What drama! Not only that, the doctors had told Mark, more than likely he may never have kids..We had been robbed of our biggest dream! This was probably one of the scariest times of my life and I really had no where to turn. My father had disowned me when I left home. So I couldn't go back. I was 17 and on my own, in one of the most corruptible cities. I would visit Mark daily, and sit with him for 12 hrs. I had to learn how to drive a stick, because the van had one. I taught myself. I remember many days crying all the way to the hospital. It took years for Mark to put on weight. You would have thought this tragedy would have changed our lifestyle, but it didn't.
As time went by Mark had regained his strength and we both got work. I was working in a factory. I had head knowledge of the Lord but hadn't given my life to him. So one day, I came home, after getting laid off. I told Mark "either you marry me or I am out of here!" Something was wrong with this picture. Isn't the man suppose to propose? Thank God, he agreed. Sometime before the big day, Mark had lost his job. So here we are, both unemployed and were going to get married. We decided that we were going to Fl. My parents had moved there and my father had said he could put Mark to work. Oh yea, about 6 weeks later, after we had moved in together my father had accepted the fact that I was living with my boyfriend. So we ended up moving in with Mark's mom until the Wedding Day. After that we headed south to begin our new life as Mr. and Mrs. Mark Grayczyk .While in Fl,. We lived in 4 different places and I got pregnant with our first born. We were thrilled! Wasn't long into the pregnancy, that I had almost lost him. Guess who started crying out to God? Mwaw! Had to quit my job and was put on bed rest. Our son was born a month early, but was healthy and beautiful. We named him Matthew, because it stood for a gift from God. This pregnancy meant the world to me and I started to search for the answer to life. It seemed to me , all we had were struggles. When Matt was born, we lived in a little trailer in a swamp. It didn't matter, it was home and we were in love. We are a family now. Wasn't long before I went back to my old ways. Mark had missed his mom so much, we decide to head back to Chicago.So this is a brief description of the beginning of our marriage.
The Lord got a hold of me at the age of 23. By now we had baby #2, our beautiful baby girl Rachel. We're complete now. A girl and a boy. Wrong! We had 3 more after that! ( De actually came into the picture when she was 15.) Mark did not surrender to Jesus until 6 years after I had.. So you can imagine how tough it was, to continue walking the straight and narrow while he continued to party. He manage to keep his job though, and support us. Many times he wanted out of the marriage because he would claim I wasn't the same girl he had married.
As you all know. Marriage has it's ups and down. We are here 29 years later, looking back saying. "WOW, now I understand what those vows meant." We are happy, proud and grateful. We don't have much to show for the 29 years in the material world, but are rich in what really matters , family, friends and Christ walking with us. We both agree, we would do it all over again. To another 29 years!
One word of advice, don't get married at the age of 19. We were babes and had to grow up the hard way.
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