13 Years Ago...

...I married the wonderful man that God chose for me, not knowing what the future held, but knowing that, no matter what adventures lay ahead, I didn't want anyone else by my side but him. It was A Very Good Day.

Now here we are, 13 years later, in a blurry photo taken by our 5 year-old son on our front lawn tonight. Our outward appearance may have changed a little :) in the years of our marriage, but the love and affection I have for him hasn't. OK, maybe it has. It's gotten deeper and stronger.

I always have to look back to previous years and see what I wrote for each anniversary. :)

2009 is here. 2008 (with lots of wedding pics and memories). Our 2007 anniversary get-away to West Virginia is here and here. Happy memories. :)

Tonight as I think about how much I love my husband--and WHY I love him--I remember the things that initially drew me to him...and some new characteristics I've spotted in him that I love so very much.

He's passionate about his relationship with God. He's the kind of person who loves to meet someone at 5:30 in the morning to pray. He's the kind of person who is never content to be a bench-warmer in the church, but shows that his commitment to God is a 24/7 kind of thing.

He's sensitive to my needs and feelings. He's not Mr. Macho who disregards and disrespects my femininity. Rather, he cherishes it. Even though he's a manly man and drives an old Jeep and likes to shoot guns and kills snakes when necessary, he also lets me go to bed and cry when I'm emotional (which hasn't happened in a while), he vacuums when I'm stressed about people coming over, and he takes all the boys to Skyline Drive when I've reached my absolute limit of people time and need some peace and quiet to clean something--ANYTHING!--and recover my equilibrium (which happened last night!). He's my hero.

He does things to surprise me, like suddenly developing an interest in gardening after having ignored the garden ever since we moved here. Because of him, our Old Order Mennonite neighbors even said, "Your garden is looking good!" - a high compliment coming from their lips. :)

Another surprise happened a few weeks ago when he returned home very soon after having left for work. We heard the Jeep roar up the driveway, then watched him drive up behind the house to the chicken coop. Of course, we were all very curious and could hardly wait to find out what was going on. As it turned out, as he was driving down the road, he had seen a turkey (not a wild one, but a domestic one that had fallen off a poultry truck) along the road, so he stopped and caught the silly thing and brought it home to put in the pen with our chickens. Why did he do that? Just to see what would happen! :) The turkey must have had some pretty serious internal injuries because it died the next day, but the whole incident reminded me of how Jeff's mind works differently than mine. I would have left the poor thing by the road, for sure.

A big thing that I've noticed recently about Jeff is his compassion: for people and for animals. I knew he was a caring soul, but it's really been hammered home the past few days as I've watched him deal with an injured bird we found lying on the ground...

...holding it gently, studying it from every angle to see where the injury might be, providing food and water for it, thinking hard to figure out the best place to put it, etc. (the bird must have recovered and flown away, because we couldn't find it the next morning)...

...and an abandoned kitten.
I think it was yesterday (or maybe the day before?) that Jeff discovered two kittens in a corner behind the house. We've kept an eye on them, setting milk out for them, and have seen the mother once. For unknown reasons, she apparently took one kitten somewhere else, but never came back for this one. By this evening, Jeff was concerned that this little cutie was in danger of dehydration, so he brought it onto the porch, fed it some warm milk with a dropper, and fixed up a cozy spot in a box for it to sleep. I don't know what will happen with it. I'd be glad to have a cat around the place; I can't have an indoor one because of my allergies, but an outside one who eats mice and scares the snakes away would be a welcome friend! :) So we'll see. But Jeff's kindness is what has really stood out to me during the past few days as he's dealt with God's creatures who have unexpectedly come our way.

As I think about Jeff, the verse that keeps coming to mind is Titus 2:10. Paul is actually giving instructions to Titus about what to teach slaves, but he uses this phrase, "...so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive." That, in my opinion, is what Jeff does so well. He shows how wonderful a God-centered life is--true abundant life.

I feel so incredibly blessed to be the one he chose.