“I thought you said you lived in a small town.”

“It is a small town.”  I replied

“No, this is a city, right there on that sign it says there are over 400,000 people living here.”

My husband Andy – then just my boyfriend – had traveled with us to Mexico to visit family.

“Believe me, it has a small town feel.”

He started laughing.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No.” he answered, “But I suppose we have different perspectives about small towns and big cities.”

“I suppose, but if you had been raised in Mexico City, with 22 million people, this would feel like a small town.”

Andy was born in a for-real small town in Wyoming, barely 1,500 people. I was born in Mexico City. He grew up attending public school; I grew up attending private schools. He was raised away from his extended family because of the nature of his dad’s job (he is a pastor too, and where God sends you, you go); I grew up surrounded by my extended family, and Sunday dinners at my grandma’s house. He grew up speaking English; I grew up speaking Spanish. He grew up in a place where you can trust people; I grew up holding on tight to my mom’s hand because even at a young age I knew there were bad people that stole little girls, hurt you, or tried to steal your money.

Even the difference in our mom’s responsibilities was different. My mom had help at the house, someone that took care of the cleaning, cooking, and laundry. My mother-in-law did it all on her own, (and she did it well, I could really learn from her).

When Andy and I got married, we were not only two different individuals, we also came from two different cultures. Sometimes, this means we have different perspectives about life, family, and parenting.

But we are in the same team.

We talk, we look at options, we try to understand each other’s perspectives (sometimes more successfully than other times). Sometimes we compromise, and sometimes we get creative and come up with our own solutions, looking at our own little family and what works for us.

And doing life with this man is an honor, even though there are challenges, and even though sometimes we have different perspectives. It has not always been easy, but it has been good, and God has been guiding us all along.

So as challenges come our ways, and while we might approach those from different perspectives, I know that in the end we will come together, because we are in the same team.