6 Years

Jan 15

Iron sharpens iron…Proverbs 27:17

I was upset when you first told me, “I love you.” I wished you would’ve waited, but that didn’t fit your heart. The heart I cling to and love in our most intimate moments and wildly daring pursuits.

The memory of us riding up the incline that warm June night, nerves wracking your brain minutes before you would propose we join our lives, our souls, together forever, will always be etched into a place deep within.

A place so deep – so sacred – it is reserved for the tenderest memories with you.

So many beginnings, firsts, and forevers with my one and only in this life.

I frustrate you to the core when closing myself off and proclaiming “I’m okay. I’ve got this.” in the midst of circumstances that leave me undone and broken.

For 6 years, it has been with much trepidation and complete trust I open up a locked away place of heart and soul to you and only you.

Faithfully your strong hands and assuring voice hold me. And then, syllable by quivering syllable we begin to rewrite the hurt and process the pain – every word laced with the breath of our Author and Creator.

I see black and white. You, gray.

Your gift and grace to color and soften my serrated edges with a beautiful hue of the two is what brings me to my knees in humility at the feet of Jesus.

My how wrong and how harsh I can be. But you, my dear, are a velvet cloak around this brick.

A gentle force slowing this freight train of emboldened passion and desperate love.

I spin words of creativity and join in song with the God of the universe with reckless abandon. You study and dissect and build with your intellect. God is your immovable foundation and you don’t live in fear of that ever changing. Wow.

You lead us with a quiet strength. One it has taken me years to learn to respect and be covered under. What a glorious process of learning you. What a holy hard it has been to live as one when we are two very different, very sinful human beings.

I look back on our 6 years of marriage and thank God for holding us together when we so easily could have fallen apart. When fires burned hot and parts of us were shattered to dust – never to be seen again.

Today we are not the two awkward gangly kids who stood on that altar and vowed to have and hold in all things ‘til death do us part, blissfully blinded to the harsh realities and deep valleys we would walk headfirst into.

We are one. Being forever molded and formed together in the crucible of life, by the One who gives us life. For He leads us into the fire, and even there, we are to have no fear because He is with us.

Looking back I see it now. I see the valleys and the heartbreak. The moments of shattered trust and overwhelming hurt. But we stood strong – in Him. The Author and Perfecter of our faith. Relinquishing the fear, brick by brick, and letting love back in.

Yes, love.

Last night at dinner, over a limoncello martini and bourbon smash with a side of two large brick oven pizzas, we talked about us and what 6 years of marriage has done to us.

It has done a lot.

But our resolve is “a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Eccl. 4:12)

So my darling, here’s to never stopping this adventure with you.

Let’s dream big, grow deep, and love sweet…forever.