Welcome to the first in my series about the life-altering experience I’ve been having since seeing this incredible movie. I’ve found that, along with the beautiful story and message of the film, almost every song in it tells the story of my life, and I need to share that with you.

I’m starting with this song because today marks nineteen years of Scott and I Rewriting the Stars, and I could not be more thankful he took the leap he did back then.

If you haven’t seen the film, this song is, at its simplest, about a couple in which the man is well respected, and the woman is considered less than, unworthy, not suitable for him. This is the moment, after an awful encounter with his parents, he’s taking a stand and telling her he doesn’t care. He’s choosing her.

When we saw this part of the film, Scott reached over and took my hand. He recognized us in it too.

Here it is :

Phillip: Fate is pulling you miles away

And out of reach from me

But you’re here in my heart

So who can stop me if I decide

That you’re my destiny?

What if we rewrite the stars?

Say you were made to be mine

Nothing could keep us apart

You’d be the one I was meant to find

It’s up to you, and it’s up to me

No one can say what we get to be

So why don’t we rewrite the stars?

Maybe the world could be ours

Tonight

Way back in early 1999, Scott realized he wanted to be with me. He loved me, he believed God was putting us together. But I was not, for various reasons, gonna be an easy sell to his family or even our mutual friends, as the person he chose to love. He was probably the person in our peer group who was most well-respected, and his family was very well respected as well. I…was not. I know now that he wrestled awhile with the risk of making this choice, but ultimately, he believed what we had was bigger than the judgement he’d face. He wrote me a letter, cards on the table, flat out “I love you.”, no holds barred. There was no awkward “will you go out with me check yes or no”, it was more “I’m all in, and if you are too, let’s be all in together.”

Ann: You think it’s easy

You think I don’t want to run to you

But there are mountains

And there are doors that we can’t walk through

I know you’re wondering why

Because we’re able to be

Just you and me

Within these walls

But when we go outside

You’re going to wake up and see that it was hopeless after all

No one can rewrite the stars

How can you say you’ll be mine?

Everything keeps us apart

And I’m not the one you were meant to find

It’s not up to you

It’s not up to me

When everyone tells us what we can be

How can we rewrite the stars?

Say that the world can be ours

Tonight

I definitely never overtly argued with Scott about this, but I was terrified for the first two years that there was no way he would keep choosing me over and over when he’d actually lost his best friend due to choosing me, and other people very close to him were literally constantly trying to convince him I wasn’t good enough, or right, or whatever. That’s not even taking into account we were 16-18 and long distance for most of that two years. There’s no way this was meant to be. Nobody believed it was gonna work.

Except us. And God. And that, in the end was what mattered. Even though our relationship was undermined and questioned up to and after the moment an engagement ring was on my finger-there was so much doubt cast on whether we were going to make it to the altar, never mind beyond- our Stars were rewritten.

Both: All I want is to fly with you

All I want is to fall with you

So just give me all of you

It feels impossible (it’s not impossible)

Is it impossible?

Say that it’s possible

How do we rewrite the stars?

Say you were made to be mine?

Nothing can keep us apart

‘Cause you are the one I was meant to find

It’s up to you

And it’s up to me

No one can say what we get to be

And why don’t we rewrite the stars?

Changing the world to be ours

Two years to the day after that letter where his cards were all laid out for me, Scott climbed up a ladder outside my bedroom window at sunrise and asked me to take a leap with him and be his wife. I didn’t hesitate, and neither of us has ever looked back. We’ve been through a lot, and we keep defying odds.

Scotty, my Scotty,

Thank you. Thank you for choosing me back then, for loving me enough, for trusting God and the love in our hearts enough to risk joining me on the outside. Thank you that in the times it’s been us against the world, us has been enough. Thank you for continuing to rewrite the Stars with me every single day, for choosing me, for sacrificing for me, for us, for giving me a safe place to land. I don’t take a bit of that for granted. For nineteen years you’ve been fighting for me, for us, to help me know my worth and confronting anything that contradicts it. I love you, and I will always believe in the impossible if we do it hand in hand.