Saturday, January 26, 2019

28 Reasons I Love You

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

1. First of all, I can’t help but like you for the fact that you picked me to be your lifelong companion and friend! I’m overjoyed in how you love to be one with me and work hard to make sure we are living “on the same page”.

2. You mystify me. You contain such a wonderful man-brain that works in awesome ways. Sometimes I think I will never completely understand some parts...and that reminds me of how you are made in the image of God.

3. I admire the way you interact with wood, nails, screw guns, and saws. You have taken the time to create such sturdy and beautiful stools, chairs, and whatever else you can think of to make my life and the lives of others easier.

4. You are a caring man. You take such good care of me! You fill my water bottle. You take care of our finances, which would drive me nuts. You take care of travel plans, booking hotels and flights and making sure it will all work out. 

5. You are humble enough and man enough to say I’M SORRY. 

6. You are brave enough to follow God, daring enough to be under authority, bold enough to share your faith anywhere you are.

7. You are a perfect counterpart for me as we raise the daughter God entrusted to us.

8. I cannot count the times you have selflessly taken Joy for me at 5:30am when I was exhausted from a wakeful night with her and let me have another couple hours of sleep!

9. You have a learner’s heart and are always open to learning new things. You appreciate my love of reading and encourage me in it, buying me books and taking me for reading dates to places like Barnes and Noble! 

10. You trust God in such tangible ways; in finances, in health, in regards to the future. I have learned a lot from you in this regard. A line of yours that I won’t forget is, “If we start to not trust our God, where will we stop? If we are going to trust Him at all, we need to trust Him all the way.”

11. I am so tickled with how you like to wear matching clothes with me. (Speaking of being tickled, you like to do that to me too!😄)

12. I’m so glad for the way that you appreciate beauty and have an attitude of “wow, look at this, it’s amazing!”

13. You are a strong leader. 

14. You surprise me with little treats, like dried mangoes from the store on the other side of town, or fried kiliwili, hot and slightly crunchy  in its little plastic bag. You think of creative ways to express your love to me, which means so much. Like the year you wrote me a note every month on the 28th. Or the times you made treasure hunts for me, leaving notes all over the apartment leading up to something special that you had prepared for me. God knew I needed someone like you...and I don’t deserve it!

15. I like how you love to do special things with our daughter. I like how you invite her into your day and are quick to take your turn caring for her when I need a break.

16. You not only do sweet romantic things, but you also take the time to wash the dishes. Mop the floor. Scrub the tub. Help me wash our laundry, whether we do it standing in the sun by hand, in a mini washer in the bathtub, or in a washing machine in the garage under our apartment. You have allowed God to help you become a faithful man who is willing to plod, willing to do menial, mundane small things, for the sake of a bigger picture that you believe in.

17. You make me see the humor in things that I never thought were funny before I married you. (Let’s keep some of those jokes just between you and me, sound good?😉)

18. You walk steadily in God’s strength in times of high stress, trauma or drama. You don’t tend to go way up and way down, but rather faithfully plod, knowing you will make it through by God’s strength.

19. You have allowed God to make you a deeply caring, tender man. Your heart is touched when you see someone in need, and your first instinct is, “let me help you!”

20. You have a great love for sharing with people. You taste anything I make, from a chicken curry with rice and stir fry to a sweet cup of homemade “Irish Peppermint Delight”, and your predictable first words are, “Wow, this is amazing! We should have ________ over and make it for them!” You have told me that there’s no use in making cupcakes if we don’t take them to somebody...and some of our most enjoyable dates have been times we baked together and then shared the fruit of our hands and hearts with neighbors, family or friends. I love your big giving heart. I love the way you share everything, not minding if it’s the last we have.

21. You are a man who has walked through intensely hard things, and survived, and kept a faith in God and His Word. You have also walked me through intensely hard things and helped me to pull through on the side of faith and trust. That has probably been one of the hardest things for you to walk through...caring for a wife who was an emotional basketcase for a very, very long season. Jonathan, your care and faithfulness to me means more than I can describe. Thank you for being there.

22. I appreciate how you love our children with me. How you enter into my loss when I am missing our Seth, and how you let me enter into yours when you are feeling that pain of separation from him. I am so grateful for how you are there to share in my delight in our daughter and her darling ways.

23. And from the first memories I have of you, your choice to look beyond, into Heaven, is something that has always stood out to me and impressed me. Sometimes I haven’t wanted to look with you up There, because I wanted to enjoy a lowly pity party or because I knew that once I started focusing on Heaven it seemed I would feel too sad about needing to be here for now. But thank you for helping me to cultivate that mindset as well, which looks Up and Beyond the present and anticipates all that God has in store for those who put their entire trust in Him.

24. Here’s another one from the beginning. I like your smile. I remember when I first started “falling in love” with you, your smile was the biggest thing that stood out to me. Covering your entire face, when you flashed that grin at me, it was as though my whole world began to sparkle and glow.

25. I like the way you sing with abandon and worship the Lord with all your heart. I love when you lead me in worship!

26. I love the way you beautiful eyes twinkle and shine when you get a great idea. I love their color and the way they are a window into your heart.

27. I am so blessed with the life goals and dreams God has given you, and that He decided I could get to be your “armor-bearer”.

28. Before we were together, I was talking to a middle aged acquaintance who wanted to know what three things I would put on the request if I could mail order a husband. I told him, “I would request a man full of Humility, Wholeheartedness, and Humor, and if I could add one more it would be someone who pays attention to details.” My friend Bob was not very encouraging. In fact, he gave me little hope such a man exists. But such a man found me. How much more grateful could I be?




Thursday, January 24, 2019

Rattlesnakes and Packages

It is dark in here, and Joy is fast asleep in the other half of our room. A string of little lights twinkle through the mosquito net, dangling their legs over the net’s hanging wooden frame. The ceiling fan is laboring above me, and a floor fan is oscillating to the left, like two servants feverishly fanning a dainty princess. (The dainty princess feelings coincide with the electric being on right now.)

It’s a new year.

A new year for doing the same old things. Teeth brushing. Nail clipping. Breakfast making. Floor mopping. Friend forgiving. Grace receiving. Hymn singing.

A new year for doing new things. Meeting new people. Seeing new places. Learning new things. Making new habits. Finding new favorites. Reading new books. Discovering God in new ways. 

{the electric just went out}

A year for new opportunities and filled with days that we have never lived before and will never live again.

Seeing we are finishing January, I am grateful to have already discovered a few precious gems hidden in this year. 

Last week one of my friends sent me a message: I want to send you a package, what’s your address? Now, I can hardly imagine a person who wouldn't want to dance for delight upon hearing words like this. And if you’ve been living overseas even for just a few months, the thought  can be overwhelmingly exciting that someone back home has caringly put together a little pile of goodies for you. 

In the midst of that jittery “let me see how fast I can type out my address!” I began to worry. We will only remain in this location for another month. What if the package doesn’t come? What if my dear friend goes to all the laborious love of buying and writing, paying the costly price for postage, dreaming of my joy ...and then it doesn’t show up in time? The mail here tends to be quite unpredictable. Sometimes it gets here in only two weeks. Other times, it can take a ridiculous six months. How to know? I began to feel a sick feeling in my tummy. What if I have to go home knowing that there is a gloriously special package for me somewhere in the tortoise-style mail system, waiting someone’s whim to send it to where I....was

After numerous hours of intermittently staring at this mental Trojan horse I decided I needed to talk to my friend. “It might not get here...it’s risky...I want you to know.” 

Her response picked up the Trojan horse and transformed it into a Statue of Liberty.

“Hi Hannah! I feel like I’m to take the risk. The package should be on its way as of this morning! And I really hope it gets to you in time. But if it doesn’t, we have the happy feeling of knowing that we risked, and we tried.”


I stood stunned as I soaked in the words of my friend. Liberated! Even if the package doesn’t get there in time, she said we actually can have the happy feeling of knowing that we risked, and we tried. I wonder how many times I live imprisoned to fear of failure and loss when I could be liberated to restfully risk and try? Too many times, I’m afraid, I labeled something as a failure instead of celebrating it as something worth risking for.

Esther decided to risk and try. I wish I could hear an audio recording, or better yet, see a video of Queen Esther sitting on, perhaps, a cushion-couch on an expensive Persian rug in the Shushan palace. I can only imagine what must have gone through her head as she processed what she was about to do. “I don’t know what the end result will be. But I do know that I don’t want to live ever after this week with the sad knowledge that I didn’t even try. Fear of failure and dying shall not keep me back from risking my life to save my race. No matter what happens, I will be OK, knowing that at least I risked; at least I tried. If I die, I just die.” Lord, give me the faith of Esther! The faith that enables me to trustingly risk, with YOU.

I remember distinctly one day when we were newly married and hiking in the Smoky Mountains. The rhododendron was bouncing in the slight breeze, and fragrant pine needles covered the incline of the dirt trail. We had only been hiking for fifteen minutes when we rounded the bend and were almost plowed over by a family of hikers who could've played Timorous and Mistrust in Pilgrim's Progress. "Watch out! There's a rattlesnake sitting in the middle of the pathway ahead!" "A big one!" "If I were you I would turn around!" And with that, they continued their hasty retreat back the trail we had just hiked. A shiver of terror flitted across my backbone as I looked up into my hubby's face, glad to be holding his hand. "What should we do?" I wondered breathlessly. Rattlesnake on the trail? Of course we shouldn't proceed! He was probably sitting there, just hideously waiting for someone to walk past so he could strike in pent up anger at who-knows-what. Yes, indeed, what a dangerous rattlesnake he must be! Stalwart man my husband is, he just looked straight ahead and said, "Let's continue our hike." "But Sweetheart, what if there is a rattlesnake and he is all angry and wanting to get someone...and how would you kill it, and what if it would bite one of us?" My husband said a quick prayer and looked at his wife. "I think we should keep hiking. That rattlesnake they saw was just as scared of them as they were of him. He is long gone into the shrubbery. I don't think we will see him. Are you willing to take my hand and let me lead you past the place where they saw the snake? I believe I can handle it if we do see a rattlesnake." Trembling and scared, the girl who had never before seen a real rattlesnake followed the man who grew up in Tennessee. We walked, and I must say, I didn't notice much of the rhododendrons for a while because I was intently searching for scaly coils along the path. Thirty minutes later, we arrived safely back at our little green car. "We didn't see any rattlesnakes!" I exulted. My husband smiled. He knew I had just gained an important experience and learned a big lesson: Trust me. I can lead you straight past something you fear, all the way back to the car. You risked, and you tried. You trusted, and you survived. Ah. Thank God for how my husband teaches me to trust Him. 



We can’t know yet what will happen with that anticipated package. We can't always know when we will be trusted to see the rattlesnakes and when we will be asked to bravely hike past their haunts, overcoming fear with trust. We can’t know yet what all will happen with this year. But I would like to have this mindset: by God’s grace, I will I take up the opportunities that come this year to follow my Lord at the sake of risk. I will risk for worthy causes, in trust. And even if I fail, at least I tried. Even if I see rattlesnakes, the God of the universe is holding my hand.

May this new year be a wonderful mix for you of both new and familiar as you walk with the Lord and seek to know Him more. May the risks you take be steps of faith and obedient trust. May He guide you safely past every rattlesnake. And may you receive many wonderful surprise “packages” of grace and joy along the way!