He brought home sixty-seven bucks a week
He bought a little 2 bedroom house on Maple Street
Where she blessed him with six more mouths to feed
Yeah that’s crazy

Just ask him how he did it; he’ll say pull up a seat
It’ll only take a minute, to tell you everything
Be a best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you
Go to work, do your best, don’t outsmart your common sense
Never let your prayin’ knees get lazy
And love like crazy

They called him crazy when he quit his job
Said them home computers, boy they’ll never take off
He sold his one man shop to Microsoft
They paid like crazy

Just ask him how he made it
He’ll tell you faith and sweat
And the heart of a faithful woman,
Who never let him forget

Be a best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you
Go to work, do your best, don’t outsmart your common sense
Never let your prayin’ knees get lazy
And love like crazy

Always treat your woman like a lady
Never get too old to call her baby
Never let your prayin’ knees get lazy
And love like crazy

They called him crazy when they started out
They’ve been together fifty-eight years now

Ain’t that crazy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0f5g18EbG4

One night between 7 and 8 years ago I had a dream. In the dream I walked into a building where three guys were playing instruments and singing. The guy who was sitting at the drums got up, came over to me, put his arm around me and introduced me to his buddies as his fiance. In my dream I had a flood of feelings…I was very nervous and very excited! I knew I was going to marry this man, but I had no idea who he was. It was like in the dream I knew I was dreaming, and I knew that in real life I didn’t actually know this guy. So, I woke up, told my sister Jess all about the dream, and described the guy to her. Because he was playing the drums, she said that it was Jeff (meaning Jeff Lay, who also played the drums), but I told her that it wasn’t.

Not too long after that, we met Jason (around May 2003), and then we met his parents (in October of 2003). After his parents went home from their visit, they sent pictures of their other two sons Jeff and Greg. When I saw the picture of Jeff, I knew he was the guy from my dream. I called Jess in the room where I was and I told her that he was the guy, and she confirmed that he was what I had described.

That dream didn’t make me know who I was going to marry, but it made me consider the possibility that he might be the one for me. Because of that dream, I was determined to get to know him, and that’s what I did.

June 12, 2004 was the Grace Church picnic at Moyer Park. There was live music and I was asked to sing a couple songs, so I agreed. I was one of the last people to sing, and I started with “You Are Still Holy.”

http://courtneyrowberg.com/music/YouAreStillHolynew.mp3

When I got to the part  near the end where it finishes the chorus by going up and then doing the chorus again (at about 3 min. and 13 sec.), I looked up and saw Jeff walking up the sidewalk (this was around 8pm). I had never met him before, but when I saw him, all the emotions—everything I felt in my dream—came back to me. I felt very excited and nervous, and like I knew I was going to marry him. Because he was introduced to my family while I was singing, I didn’t get to officially meet him then, and we actually didn’t speak until the end of the night. We were all getting ready to leave, and I was about to get in the van when I turned around and said “bye,” and he said “bye” back. And that is how we met.

Jeff spent a week in VA with our family that summer, and after he went home, he almost immediately started playing the drums. In the first video I saw with him in it, he was playing the drums, and two other guys were singing and playing instruments, just like in my dream.

To read what happened after that (written in 2007), go here.

We got engaged December 25, 2007 but our “official” engagement wasn’t until June 12, 2008. To read our engagement story, go here.

I graduated from high school in Summer of 2006, but didn’t start college at Virginia Western until Fall of 2007, and I didn’t get a job until Summer 2007. I have often thought that if I had listened to my dad and hadn’t waited a year to go back to school, I would have been done a year sooner, and I wouldn’t be a year behind a lot of people my age. But whether it was a good or bad decision really depends on what I did with that time. I had a short-term job working a couple hours every Tuesday in a church nursery, and I worked on driving and studying driver’s ed. Those two things alone don’t really warrant taking a year off of school.

But I did something else with that year: I was the mother to someone else’s child. Granted, I didn’t have to keep him at night or pay for any of his stuff, but I took care of him. Almost every day, pretty much all day I would keep him; I fed him, changed him, put him down for naps, took care of him when he was sad or hurt, played with him, and loved him. He came to me over anyone else (including his real mother). He even called me mom once. I poured much more time, energy, and love into him than his mother, and he was like a son to me. I could have gone straight to college out of high school, but I would have had to miss out on that year with my baby. Once, a year or so after starting school and after not having seen my baby for quite some time, I was at my parents’ house and he was there. His parents had come to pick him up. But a minute after they left, he came running back through the door and he said “I forgot to give Courtney a hug!” He hugged me and ran back out. He didn’t say anything else or pay any attention to anyone else, and my heart just melted. I wouldn’t trade that year being a mother for anything.

But I did go back to school at the end of that summer, and I started working towards an AAS degree in Information Systems Technology. It took me six whole semesters to that degree, but I’m now finished. Since getting my associate’s degree, people ask me “what’s next?” wondering if I’m going to go back to school to get a bachelor’s degree, or if I’m going to start a career. Well, he truth of the matter is that I’m not doing either of those things. This makes people wonder why I went to school in the first place. I went to school for many reasons, but I didn’t go to get a job and have a career. I went to school to learn things, to grow as a person, to experience things I had never experienced before, and to observe different teaching styles in the hope of learning a thing or two about what makes a good teacher and what makes a bad one. For as long as I can remember, all I have wanted to do with my life was to be a wife and mother. I wanted to have children, to be a stay-at-home mom, and to homeschool any children I might have. My dreams and expectations have grown, but that is still my desire for my life. About now you might be wondering why I chose the degree I did when there may have been much better options, if being a homeschool mom was my dream. To answer that, I will say that I have been interested in computers for quite some time, and I thought it would be interesting–which it was.

Many people have also asked me what I plan on doing with my degree, and I keep answering “nothing” when in fact that isn’t quite true. What I plan on doing with my degree is this: Understanding and communicating with my husband about his passion. He can get excited and talk to me about some complicated database query he’s been working on, and I can understand (mostly) and rejoice with him, instead of giving him a blank stare and then being like “whatever” and going along with my day. If you have enough money to live, then I would say that’s a much more fulfilling use of a degree than just having a high-paying job.

So, what’s next for me? Well, I’m not 100% sure. I’m planning to go back to school in the fall and work towards something that has nothing to do with computers. I want to keep learning and going to school until I have children. I don’t want to have children while I’m working towards a degree, but I would rather have children than another degree. Now that I have my associate’s degree, there is nothing else that I really want to finish before I have children. Though, Jeff and I have discussed children and we’re waiting another 1.5 to 2 years, unless we decide otherwise or God decides to give us children sooner (or later).

This, my sixth, and last semester has been weird to say the least. Both classes are online and only have things due every few weeks so my schedule has been weird. Capstone isn’t too bad because I get to work on a project that I chose and do it mostly the way I want. Java as I said before isn’t my thing, but I think I get a little more every time I work on it, and with the help of Jeff I’m getting it. So far my grades for the classes are 100% in ITP 246 and 96% in ITP 298, and I don’t think they will change much, so I’m going to estimate that I will have A’s in both classes.

If I wait a few more years, what good will that do? I’ve poured just over four years into Jeffrey’s life, into getting to know him, and preparing to marry him. If the last four years haven’t done it, what will a few more do? I made a promise to him and that promise was forever, and any amount of waiting to be legally married isn’t going to change it. We’re married in every way except legally (and physically); we’re married in heart, mind, and soul, and we have been for over two years. I know I don’t know everything about him, but it’ll take me a whole lifetime to know him completely, and that’s what I’m going to do. My life will be his, and I’m prepared for that. I know there will be trouble, but I’m willing to face it.

People think I’m crazy…and they can think whatever they want. Jeffrey is the man for me and I’m willing to give up all of me, for us. I love him and have for quite a while now. The rose-colored glasses have come off for me and I feel differently about him then I did four years ago, and even though it’s not all “perfect love” like it was, I love him so much more than I did then. He’s not perfect and I’m not perfect, but God can work miracles. He has worked them in EVERY marriage that has lasted and He doesn’t tire. I am nervous about getting married because it isn’t going to be easy, and it is VERY much an unknown for me, but I believe we can make it.

www.rowberg.net/jcwedding

I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned
I only know at His right hand
Stands one who is my Savior

My Savior loves, My Savior lives
My Savior loves, My Savior lives

“Where Are the Young Radicals for Christ?
When I stand, as it were, on the shores of Iwo Jima and let myself reenact those hours of courage and sacrifice, and remember that they were young, I cannot make peace with the petty preoccupations of most American life. One of them was really young. I read his story and wanted to speak to every youth group in America and say, Do you want to see what cool is? Do you want to see something a thousand times more impressive than a triple double? Well, listen up about Jacklyn Lucas.

As I read that, I thought of all the things that high school kids think is cool. I sat on the porch where I was reading and thought, O God, who will get in their face and give them something to live for? They waste their days in a trance of insignificance, trying to look cool or talk cool or walk cool. They don’t have a clue what cool is.
One more story to clarify what is cool. It’s about Ray Dollins,

a fighter pilot at Iwo Jima. The first wave of amtracs headed for shore. The Marine fighter planes were finishing up their low strafing runs. And as the last pilot began to pull his Corsair aloft, Japanese sprang to their guns and riddled the plane with flak. The pilot, Major Ray Dollins, tried to gain altitude as he headed out over the ocean so as to avoid a deadly crash into the Marines headed for the beach, but his plane was too badly damaged. Lieutenant Keith Wells watched it from the amtrac. . . . “We could see him in the cockpit,” Wells said, “and he was trying everything. He was heading straight down for a group of approaching ’tracs filled with Marines. At the last second he flipped the plane over on its back and aimed it into the water between two waves of tanks. We watched the water exploding into the air.” Military personnel listening to the flight radio network from the ships could not only see Dollins go down; they could hear his last words into his microphone. The were a defiant parody.

Oh, what a beautiful morning,
Oh, what a beautiful day,
I’ve got a terrible feeling
Everything’s coming my way.

Of course, we do not use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That’s the point. It’s cheap. And it’s what millions of young people live for. Who confronts them with urgency and tears? Who pleads with them not to waste their lives? Who takes them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life so radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collection and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will waken what lies latent in their souls, untapped—a longing not to waste their lives? “

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/1593_Dont_Waste_Your_Life/
http://www.desiringgod.org/media/pdf/books_dwyl/dwyl_all.pdf