I know I’m a little late for Cinco de Mayo, but the Mexican holiday is a special day for me and my husband: it’s our anniversary, and this year was our tenth anniversary.  So I thought you all should know what a great man I married.  I have not always (and still do not often enough) recognize how wonderful he really is or how much I love him.  He is smart and funny and kind, and he works hard to be a good provider.

My husband is big and strong – physically, emotionally, spiritually.  In spite of the turmoil of the last four years, he has been a rock.  Admittedly, I sometimes resented that, but I wouldn’t have made it through it without him and his strength.  He has loved me through all the pain, the depression, and the sometimes utter crazy that my emotional life has been, and he has accepted me for what I am even when I know he would’ve prefered to walk away.  We have had some extraordinarily difficult moments, and I know we both considered the option of moving on, but I also know we both know now that it would have been a mistake.  I truly cannot imagine my life without him in it, and I can’t wait for the next decade of Cinco de Mayos so that we can be even better together.

My husband is not Mr. Romantic, but he is generous and gentle beyond measure; he is a solid refuge on which to build a life together.  God has given me an amazing gift: my lover, my partner, my friend, my leader, my home.  All the flowers and chocolates and mixed tapes in the world fade in comparison to that certain knowledge.  There is no romantic gesture that could top the feeling that when I see him, I am home and I am loved.

Marriage is hard work, and I have made his job harder more than once.  In spite of (or maybe because of) that I am sure our foundation is strong enough to stand if we keep doing the work.  I know that we have a lot more of life ahead of us, but in ten short years it feels like we have weathered the worst of it and come out stronger on the other side.  I don’t mean that there aren’t worse things than miscarriage and rough patches that we may have to face in the future, but we met ththose things at our weakest and grew together through them.  As long as we keep growing together, there is nothing that we can’t handle together in faith.

So, I hope you will not shoot me for posting about you, dear.  I am always your Bookdork (a name lovingly conferred upon me in college that stuck like glue), and I love you mostest!