A really beautiful, fruitful garden takes time. It can’t happen overnight. It takes planning and planting and sunshine and rain. A fruitful garden must be tended…

33 Years in the Making

A marriage, a life, an enduring friendship, a love that lasts, a love that creates, a love that makes a place, a love that can still be silly, but wildly, seriously passionate, too. It takes 33 years to fall so hard, to break-up and make-up because there simply is no other there there. In good times, in bad…

It takes 33 years to have 5 kids and see them grow into human beings you find to be more fascinating than you can believe and to let them become, watching as bits and pieces of yourselves walk around the planet doing well – doing good, bringing glory to God by being who He made them to be. Thirty-three years.

It’s like a blip on the radar screen of time, but this time, our time, this love, our love, these days, our days – they have taken us 33 years to navigate, to tame, to experience, to taste, to  cry over, to hold close, to run from, to do badly and to do well.  In times of joy, and in times of sorrow…

It has taken us 33 years to get here.  I…take you…to be my…

And oh yes, there have been bouquets of flowers and you’ve heard more of my laughter than anyone on earth ever will. And there have been love songs and passionate kisses and just plain times of sweet satisfaction with the life we have lived as honorably as we could and with the children we have raised and their children, now, too.  For better…

But there have been agony and night seasons that sent friends fleeing for the hills and you have caught my tears and moved closer to bear my pain. And we have failed miserably sometimes as lovers, sometimes as parents, and as a family, and we’ve had to labor with intensity through great pain, harder than can be imagined, to repair the breeches, restore the losses. For worse…

It takes 33 years for this to be: for us to be us, for the children we raised to be the people they are, for 9 beautiful grandbebes to reward our fruitfulness with so much joy and delight. To have and to hold…

This blessed life was not built in a day, nor in the heated passion of our fall into deep love.  It has taken 33 years of rights and wrongs, and good and not-so-good, but overwhelmingly lovely, oh-so-very lovely, love-filled days to get here, with you. For in the times there was nothing else to do, we have lived on love.

It’s taken 33 years for me to have more than I ever hoped or dreamed and more than I deserved. You are my home. Please keep me. :)  For as long as we both shall live…

We are not of the “selfie” generation and it takes us 30 or so tries to get us both in the picture, centered and looking roughly the same direction. This was at Peaceful Valley in the Rocky Mountains last week.

Happy Anniversary to the father of my children, to my life, my love, my home, the man of my dreams, and my most trusted friend {a spot well-earned}. Thank-you for your faithfulness, your steadiness, your commitment to love even when it has been challenged, and for knowing who you are in Christ. You’re the strongest man I know.

“You are so handsome, my love,
pleasing beyond words!
The soft grass is our bed;
fragrant cedar branches are the beams of our house,
and pleasant smelling firs are the rafters.” Ecclesiastes 1.16-17 NLT

It took 33 years to create a home and garden so fine.

July 23, 1981 was a wonderful day to begin the work of love.

{Remember When}, a song… <<< click on it

PS //  Oh, and – I know this is a long, serious blog post. I could just as easily have said: Dear Dave, I love your brown skin and strong arms. Plus your gorgeous hair and incredible lips. I love having your body in the bed next to me night after night and that you and me got to make this sweet family and still get to make out anytime we want. Happy Anniversary, lover. Signed, Me ;)