When my wife and I decided to get married at ages 20 and 21 respectively, it seemed like all the odds were stacked up against us.

We were young—younger than most people who get married. Neither of us were done with school yet and did I mention that we were young? Because everyone else certainly did.

Granted, we had been seriously dating for over five years by the time we tied the knot, but they weren't wrong—we are pretty young.

We don't have our lives fully figured out yet, and we probably haven't even fully figured out who we are as individuals yet, but that warrants us an opportunity that most who marry later in life don't have: figuring those things out together.

Of course, there were also significant faith-related reasons for us to get married when we did as well. We're both Christ followers who want to have as healthy and God-honoring a relationship as possible, which for us meant that we needed to wait until we were married to experience the full depths of intimacy that we both felt more than ready for after five years.

But while sex was a factor in the decision to get married when we did, it certainly wasn't the primary reason.

Five years of dating was a long time to wait, but those years (one-and-a-half of which were spent as a long engagement) also gave us plenty of time to grow both as individuals and as a couple, to the point where we were confident we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

Once we were certain of that fact, it felt like the natural next step was to act on it and actually move toward getting married.

Though it seemed almost absurd to everyone at first—including the two of us—we decided to take a step forward in faith and jump head-first into adult life together as a married couple.

We didn't know exactly how things would pan out financially, but we were reasonably certain that we could manage and that God would be as faithful in providing for us as he always has.

And God hasn't disappointed. In fact, he has far surpassed anything we could have asked or imagined within the very first month of our life together.

Even though there were a lot of unknowns and steps of faith involved in us getting married at such a young age, there were a few very important things that I did know.

For example, I knew without a doubt that I'm a better man with my wife than without her. She has brought out the best in me since day one, taught me what it means to love unconditionally and constantly challenged me to grow in ways that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Getting married when we did has given us all sorts of new opportunities to grow together that we wouldn't have if we were still only dating.

Don't get me wrong, being married as young as we are, come with plenty of challenges, but even those challenges are opportunities in their own right.

No matter what difficulties may come, we're in this thing together—for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part.