An Anniversary Reflection

22 years with you, my love.

It hasn’t always been easy.
We’ve slammed doors. We’ve said things we wish we hadn’t.
We’ve stayed up arguing over things that didn’t matter.
We’ve stretched pennies to buy diapers.
We’ve sinned against each other in a hundred ways.
And life together has rarely, if ever, felt balanced.

You carried me through the darkness after the church plant.
I carried you through the darkness after we lost Nicaea.
I held your hand while they cut the baby out to save your life.
You’ve given me my shots every week just so I can function.
Together, we took on the hospital and gave Mom the goodbye she deserved.

We’ve learned that the weight of family never falls evenly.
It shifts. It crushes.
And we’ve learned to lean on each other when it does.

Life together has been costly.
You’ve given your body and your years to raise our kids.
I’ve given mine to long hours of work, often thankless and seemingly fruitless.
We’ve lost friendships for doing the right thing.
We’ve buried dreams so our family could thrive.

But it’s been thrilling. Never boring.
We’ve taken risks. Big ones.
We moved to Clifton, Bloomington, South Carolina, sometimes with little more than a hunch and a prayer.
We planted a church on the Eastside for folks like us, and by God’s grace, it took root.

And it’s been rewarding.
Nine children. Nine.
We’ve heard them say “Jesus.”
We’ve watched our boys become men.
We’ve crammed eight kids into one queen bed just because they wanted to be near us.
We've graduated a son into the workforce.
Our home has become a haven, a place where new believers grow and others learn what fruitfulness looks like.
We’ve watched our disciples become disciple-makers.

And it’s been sweet.
Sunsets with wine.
Coffee and chickens at sunrise.
Laughing at dumb inside jokes that only we find funny.
Quiet phone calls across state lines, just glad to know the other is still there.

Life together has been worth it.
We staked everything on the goodness of God.
And we’ve never come up short.

Everything we’ve built, we built side by side.

There’s more to say, but life calls.
Happy anniversary.