The Number of our Days

Baby Girl, we are in the middle of week 21 of your life in my womb, and already it seems you are growing way too fast. I’m not sure how we already passed the halfway point of this pregnancy, but it appears you will be here before we know it, while I’m still scratching my head wondering where Christmas went. I saw my favorite yogurt on sale at the market, with the sale’s end date marked as March 12. “Wow,” I thought, “I have a good month to come back to the market to get more of this before the sale ends!” On my way to my car, I realized it was March 12 already. How is it that the passage of time can deceive us so?

I’d like to think that I have a decently realistic perspective on how our lives will be upheaved when you arrive. These days, when I choose to sleep in, I am well aware that this is a limited luxury. When I sit down with a good book on my days off, I tell myself I better read fast because I won’t have much quiet reading time for years to come, unless you count the bedtime stories that will be on repeat as I (attempt to) lull you to sleep. When your daddy and I flew home from one final vacation, I foresaw myself in the shoes of the mom behind me as she tried oh so apologetically to keep her kid from kicking my seat on the plane, again. I did not take it for granted that for now, I still have full containment of all your extremities there in my womb.

This experience makes me realize anew how we make so many of our decisions depending on the assumptions in our minds of how much time or how many other options we have. All that home reorganization that I was procrastinating is now put on the fast track. I’m determined to get most of the nesting done while I have a decent amount of energy and can still actually bend over without a large watermelon in my way. I’m savoring all my quality time with friends before my conversations are interrupted with “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!!” I’m so aware now of moments that feel like wasted time, lost time.

Working as a pediatric ICU nurse also puts a unique perspective on this pregnancy. For better or for worse, my experiences with my patients have forced me to walk this uncomfortable line between what is simply reality, and what is flat out morbid. I know the odds are in my favor, but I do not assume that I will absolutely, necessarily have a healthy child. If she is born healthy, I do not assume that she will live a healthy 85+ years and simply die peacefully in her sleep at some ripe old age. In some ways, this makes me overly paranoid, and of this I am very well aware. In other ways, this perspective makes me thankful for every healthy kick I feel, and every normal ultrasound picture that I see thus far. But I don’t presume upon anything. I appreciate the fragility of it all. I want so much to guard her with my life.

And so, in this season, I echo the prayer of the Psalmist:

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

letter to baby, at one trimester

I wasn’t sure for a long time if I wanted you. No, that’s not quite it. I just wasn’t sure if I could be the mommy you deserve to have. Life was so unrelentingly full with big things, unusually big things, some good things and some really sad things, and I was scared that I couldn’t give you the attention and priority and love you would need. Your daddy was so patient with all my crazy fears and our God was so gracious. And now here you are. We saw you, heard your little strong heartbeat, and there’s no turning back. Your head is huge and your legs and arms are still forming. I think you look ridiculous and adorable and amazing and just perfect. I can’t believe you are inside of me, connected to me, depending on me to take good care of you because right now, you are literally a part of me.

I can’t help but wonder if you have any conscious thoughts at this point. Do you mind that I still sleep on my stomach sometimes at this point, or is it annoying? Do you feel ravenously hungry when I feel ravenously hungry? Does it startle you when I sneeze? Did you hear the music I was making on the keyboard this morning? I hope you are comfortable and happy and safe in there. I think you have your daddy’s gas.

I’m eating a whole lot these days because of you. You sure do like all things potato, egg, and orange. Apparently you hate mushrooms and green beans, and the taste of coffee is a bit much for you (which makes me wonder if you’re really my child). You’re making my relationship with food really complicated.

I take care of a lot of sick kids at work, and it’s scary for me to know that you are not necessarily exempt from any of the things I have witnessed. You belong to God and your life is in His hands, and that is a good place to be. I hope to make good choices that will give you only the best quality of life at the end of the day. If you are healthy, which means you are running around and babbling and exploring and getting messy and sometimes screaming incessantly, I hope to not take that for granted too much when I’m exhausted and longing for peace and quiet.

I pray to grow and stay rooted in enough security in Christ and humility before Him that I don’t let my ego get wrapped up in your future behavior, your future success. I don’t want to raise the pastor’s kid. I just want to raise you. He is weaving your heart and mind and being together in my womb, and I hope to nuture you well so that you might know your Creator and live for Him, with all the gifting and passions He’s putting in you. Even if you and I have completely opposite personalities, interests, everything. I hope to value you well for all you are.

Well, enjoy it there in my belly for the next few months. The world is a big place and you’ll have a lot to take in. I don’t know if you sleep sometimes, but if you do, sweet dreams, little alien baby. Mommy loves you, and mommy’s praying for you.

I wasn’t lying then, but I am more honest now

Do you and your husband interact differently now than when you first got married?

I can’t stop thinking about this question posed to me and the husband by a soon-to-be-married couple, and my brief response at the time:

I think we’re a lot more honest with each other now.

Much of this is because we know ourselves a lot better, we know each other a lot better, and we’re more familiar with ourselves in light of one another. We know ourselves in ways that can only be revealed through shared life under one roof for an extended period of time. It wasn’t so much that we were being dishonest during the period of courtship. There were just so many things that had yet to be more fully revealed; hence there was only so much we could intentionally disclose to each other, much less ourselves, when we were still just dating. Learning to see oneself and one’s spouse truthfully in the context of many different life circumstances inherently takes time, effort, and experience. Surviving the occasional shock of these lessons requires honesty, humility, and the openness to being shaped and reshaped by another person – again, and again, and again. I thought I knew myself so well when we got married. I thought I wouldn’t really change all that much with time. Wrong on both counts. But a good kind of wrong, I would say. Deeper self-awareness and growth are from God. This marriage has been both the context and the tool.

Much of this is also about growing in trust and commitment. Unlike in dating or engagement, the entire relationship is no longer on the line if I say too many things that displease or unsettle him, and vice versa. (Obviously I am not applying this to more extreme cases like abuse.) We’re committed to walking together for life now, so we might as well be more honest about those issues that make the road rougher, and learn to truly smooth them out rather than romantically gloss over them. After all, if I’m not really planning to stick around, or he’s thinking of calling it quits, then I can lie and say it doesn’t really bother me that much that he roots obnoxiously for the Trojans. But since I must live with this major character flaw of his, then I might as well tell him how I really feel about it and then figure out some sort of compromise. No honey, we can’t paint the whole house cardinal and gold, but you can buy that ugly jacket. Just don’t wear it out on our date nights. Our love for one another is not perfect, obviously. (How could anyone love a Trojan fan perfectly?) But we can move from places of being stuck in our shortcomings, forgive one another because Christ has already forgiven us, and work hard at moving forward for good because this is how God in His forbearance loves us.

We’re coming up on eight years of marriage. I had someone say to me the other day, “After fourteen years for me and my spouse, it’s now more about tolerance than it is about love.” I found that to be incredibly sad. Less newlywed romance, perhaps. But mere tolerance and only wistful remnants of love? I don’t think it has to be that way. I think with each day, month, year together, we’re building something that is ultimately helping us to say an even more honest “I love you” now than what we uttered on our very wedding day.

a messy answer to a loaded question

It is an incredibly hard question to answer. You’d think that I would have some kind of ready response, given that I think about it every day, but there simply is no neatly packaged answer that seems to do any meaningful justice to the question,

What is it like to be a pastor’s wife?

First, I need to explain why it is so hard to answer this question in the first place. Complexity. This is not just one question. It is at least two. What is it like to be the wife of a pastor? And what is it like to be in the separate but related role of “a pastor’s wife”?

So now, part one of that question: What is it like to be in a marriage relationship with someone who is a pastor?

Well, relationship is fundamentally molded by time shared. And for the pastor, there are demands on his time that do not exist for any other profession, coupled with expectations that he can or should find a way to meet many, if not most, if not all of those demands. This makes for an irregular schedule for your home life. His meetings with people are generally scheduled around the 9-5 work schedule that the majority of people abide by, which means that others’ free time is his work time, i.e. evenings and weekends. The spouse, then, either comes with him or stays home without him, both options having their challenges if the spouse works full-time herself. And it’s not just demands on his time. It’s demands on his emotional, mental, intellectual and spiritual self. He is constantly asked to give, and give well, on all these levels. He needs to find time to recharge, through our marriage but also apart from me. He needs his man-cave time too. It takes a lot of intentional effort on both his and my part to help make sure that happens.

If you are married to the pastor, you don’t hear the sermon the same way as everyone else in the congregation. At least I don’t. I am thinking about the sermon, but I’m also thinking about how he feels about his sermon and what kind of feedback he will want and need from me afterwards. I listen to sermon podcasts from other pastors so that I can listen to a sermon just for the sake of my own learning and growth, and for nothing else. I also have learned how to better negotiate with my pastor-husband just how much he uses me and our relationship as analogies or examples for the things he is preaching about. While I consider myself to be fairly honest and open about my life, I am nonetheless uncomfortable being the center of attention, especially in a larger group. I don’t always want to be worked into the sermon. Our dog has been a nice substitute.

If God gives you children, you are going to raise the pastor’s children. You want them to be just your children, but the fact remains, they are also the pastor’s children.  No pressure.

You know the pastor in ways that no one else does. You know his dreams, his hopes, his fears, his frailties. And you are to be his main support and encourager through it all. It is wonderful and amazing. It can also be heartbreaking.

Now, part two of the question: What is it like to be in the role of “the pastor’s wife”?

The expected “role” of “the pastor’s wife” is largely defined by your denomination, and more specifically, the personalities in your church congregation. They determine a lot of the underlying definitions and expectations of that “role.” Even if you have a supportive congregation and a fairly healthy sense of self, you still feel yourself constantly negotiating those tensions between what you want and need and what you feel others want and need. What is more, the tensions are not completely static. They will change as your congregation changes, and they will change as your own personal life changes. As a result, you are constantly re-negotiating them to some degree. You’re evaluating your personality type, your social preferences, your boundaries with time, the needs of the church, and your own needs. And you’ve stepped into this role, regardless of any other roles you already play in your own career, family, and other circles of influence.

There are other miscellaneous dynamics that are somewhat unique to the role of the pastor’s wife.

Your financial situation is different from everyone else’s. I’m not talking so much about salary and tax laws, though those can certainly be sticky topics. I’m talking about perception and expectations related to finances. What you buy, what you wear, what you drive, where you live, where you go on vacation. You feel the presence of perceptions and expectations related to all these things more than the spouse of any other profession, I would argue. I know of one pastor’s wife whose husband won a contest from a local sports radio station, which landed a huge HDTV in their living room. I know of another pastor’s wife whose wealthy mother-in-law passed on a used Mercedes to her and her husband. These would be much more normal and acceptable in any other context, but because the husband’s occupation is that of a pastor, they receive, at times, questioning looks about these nicer things in their possession, and they feel a need to explain.

Your relationships are just different. It’s hard to articulate the dynamics in this arena. But I remember going to a family’s home for New Year’s Eve, and they had two energetic, playful dogs who proceeded to do what dogs sometimes do – they humped. Mortified, the teenage son pulled one dog off of the other with this specific scolding: “Not in front of the pastor’s wife!” I was mostly amused but also a little sad. He didn’t feel like he could let his dog just be a dog, simply because I was there, and I was the “pastor’s wife”? I never forgot that, maybe because it reflected a bit of this underlying threat to honest and real relationships that I wish with all my might didn’t exist, but does. Adam McHugh describes this well in his blog post, Why I Sometimes Lie About My Profession.

There are spiritual aspects around this question that I have for now intentionally left out of this post. Not because they aren’t important, and not because life is really that compartmentalized. God knows that without the spiritual aspects for me and my husband, none of this would ever be possible or worth it. But I left them out because usually when people ask me the initial question presented at the beginning of this post, they are asking about the day-to-day, nitty gritty stuff, which is what I’ve tried my best to describe here in hopefully some measure of succinctness.

I also do not intend this blog post to come across as a litany of complaints. I’m just trying to describe the experience of at least this one pastor’s wife as honestly and as straightforward as I can. These are the challenges and tensions that I am constantly working through. Can it be hard? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

why I regret robbing my mother

There was a law at the time which dictated that for immigrant families who wished to come to the United States, one parent had to come and stay for a year first before the rest of the family could join. A type of security deposit, I suppose. On paper, I can see how it makes sense. Protects the country, somehow. But for a young couple with two baby girls under the age of two, I can see how it felt like an impossible move. A father, determined but scared nonetheless, leaving his family behind and going to a place where he did not know the language, the culture, the street signs, the taboos. He knew no one, no one knew him, and no one really cared. Except the family he left behind.

My mom says that once that year was up, my sister and I thankfully slept quite soundly on that long, so very long, plane flight from Taiwan to Los Angeles. I often wonder what went through her mind during that long lonely flight with us. What did a young mother with two baby girls pack in her suitcase as she flew them from one side of the world to another? My father drove the equally long drive from Nebraska to LAX to be reunited with his girls. And together as a family, we turned his car around and drove back to Nebraska where my parents would finish their graduate school education. Listening to lectures in a foreign language and trying desperately to interpret and then process everything before the professor moved on to the next sentence, the next equation, the next exam. It was so hard. But it was for their girls.

Between then and now, I have mostly not appreciated my parents. I don’t think I have ever said to their face, “Thank you for giving up your entire lives so that my sister and I could have a better life.” I was embarrassed by their accents, their broken English, their struggles to assimilate into my cool American life. They were always so frugal with everything and I resented it. I had no idea what a mortgage was, and besides, what did that have to do with me? So I stole a wad of money from my mom’s purse in high school and let her think that a coworker had taken it. I remember her feeling so confused, so disappointed, that anyone at her workplace would even think to do that to her. It wasn’t until college that I confessed to her, it was me. She didn’t get mad. She was just so… shocked. We had some significant differences in personality, communication styles and overall life philosophy that took a lot of work and heartache to sort through. We were never a family that openly expressed affection very easily, and we sure broke each other’s hearts countless times. Yet somehow we’d eventually tread on superficial chit-chat in that awkward movement towards reconnecting, quietly, again and again.

It’s funny how you can know your parents so well and yet not really know them at all. I remember asking my mom once over dinner, why did you marry Dad? She’s normally not the sentimental type. But her face softened. “You know… he was just… such a nice guy.” I never really thought of them as two people who had gotten giddy around each other, but she opened up a small view hole into two younger versions of themselves, eyeing each other on the college campus, flirting, laughing, wondering. They weren’t just my frugal, embarrassing immigrant parents. They were, well, real people. Huh.

Last night, my mom received an award as “Employee of the Year” in her workplace. She is the senior systems administrator overseeing the IT system for a city police department. All that hard, hard work furiously translating her graduate school lectures in those crazy Nebraska years paid off, not just for her girls, but now, for her. She was so embarrassed at the bouquet of flowers we made her hold because of the extra attention it drew to her. But of the 60+ people who received various recognitions throughout the night, many of which were for acts of tremendous valor, she was the one person who got some whistles from the crowd when her name was called. My mother? Police officers and other non-sworn coworkers came up to us throughout the night and raved about how much they loved her, about how we couldn’t let her go on vacation because the department fell apart when she wasn’t there. She grinned sheepishly throughout the night. No… she glowed. It was her night. I was so proud of her. I was so proud to be her daughter.

How introversion suits my pastor’s wife. And oh, that’s me.

Back in my college years, I remember dreaming about becoming a pastor’s wife. Oh silly, naive me. I certainly found a shepherd’s heart to be wonderfully attractive. I thought it would be neat to be an encourager, the main encourager, to a person in that role. I thought it would be neat for my own self to have more doors open for me to care for others.Then, I married a pastor, and I cried.  I can’t do this. I can’t. do. this.

Please don’t get me wrong. Our church community is as genuinely supportive as it gets in their care towards us and their respect of our boundaries around our personal lives. They are actually quite amazing in how supportive they are. But even still, the roles of pastor and pastor’s wife are just inherently hard. Boundaries between the professional and the personal and incredibly blurry. Our personal life, in so many ways, is completely intertwined with my husband’s professional life. That’s a lot of pressure when you’re having a bad day. When my Sunday mornings come on the heels of a busy stretch of shifts at work in the hospital, I can tell that my ability to engage in meaningful conversation at church is not so stellar, and it’s in those moments that I hope people can understand that this introvert can’t always keep up so well with the roles of nurse and pastor’s wife without a bit of social faltering here and there. I hope they can remember that I’m primarily Stephen’s wife, not ‘the pastor’s wife’. Well, beyond that, I hope they can remember that I’m just me.

After reading Adam McHugh‘s lifechanging book, Introverts in the Church, followed by Susan Cain‘s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, I have become significantly more comfortable with my personality type and have learned how to recognize, treasure, and make the most out of the strengths that introversion has to offer. I’ve learned how to pull myself out of overstimulating crowds and engage in smaller, quieter conversations with just one or two people. I’ve learned how to communicate my needs for periods of solitude to my husband so that he can plan his meetings and dinners at our home accordingly. I’ve learned that I do not need to feel guilty when I keep my open days open, and use much of that free time to read, write, and take long walks to pray. I’ve learned that this is what makes me a better listener and a better talker in the long run. And I have to admit, I still relish the shock on peoples’ faces when they find that I have a very sarcastic, pranksterish side that I love to keep quietly hidden until just the right time.

But really, as I have gained a much better understanding of who I am and what my introverted rhythms are in terms of a social versus private balance, I honestly feel that this has helped my husband and I guard our own time together in a much healthier way. While he is an introvert as well, he has much more social stamina and he does not have as strong of a need for structure in his days. My counselor suggested that I help build in structure, not only for my own alone time, but for the two of us, in order to help ensure that we both have sufficient space to breathe, rest, and receive.

Some may say that pastors and pastors’ wives would do better if they were all extroverts. I would say that I love being an introvert married to an introverted pastor, and I would say that our personality type is a good, good thing for us.

Police presence, tantrums, and the one thing I remember

There are many things about my childhood I have forgotten. Or so I’ve been told. After all, I’ve forgotten them. For example, my sister and I were reminiscing recently about the times we used to get locked out after school while our parents were still at work. We’d find a way to climb up to the roof to get in through a side window that was often left open. One time, a neighbor who didn’t recognize us – or perhaps just greatly disliked us – saw us on the roof and called the police. My sister was so animated in her recollection of this near-arrest. I, on the other hand, could not remember this event even if my life depended upon it, which is odd to me given how dramatic it was.

One strong memory that I do have, however, falls so low on the excitement scale that there is hardly any logical reason for it to be as clear and as present as it is in my mind. It is the memory of being at the roller-skating rink as a child, going in circles over and over again in that run-down community rink. I remember going often. I wasn’t out to become some sort of professional, famous roller-skater, if there is such a thing. Apparently, I just really enjoyed the thrill of going around in circles, which may explain a lot about my current state. But I digress. The specific memory that stands out as though it were yesterday is that of my mom sitting on the side. I would look for, and happily find, her face with every round I made. Looking back, that must have been tortuously dull for her. She would bring me on weeknights, which meant she had to be up early the next day for work. And as hard as it is to imagine, I’m sure there were plenty of other things she would have rather been doing than watching me go around that rink, again and again and again. But it meant something to me. I remember her presence there so well.

We can be so easily deceived in our perception of the mundane things. Sometimes I hear people say something along the lines of, “I have a Masters degree. I shouldn’t have to clean up after people like this.” As if the serving of others ought to be reserved for people of lower significance, because not only are those people less important, but so is what they do. Many of my parent friends have told me about their struggle with what they do in secret every day. All day. Or all night. Change another poopy diaper. Do the same load of laundry I did three days ago. Cook yet another meal. No one knows, and no one sees, except this inconsolable child throwing a tantrum on the floor.

I probably threw plenty of tantrums throughout the other days when I was not at that roller-skating rink, complaining about who knows what. I don’t remember my tantrums, though I’m sure my mom does. She probably doesn’t remember much about those nights in the roller-skating rink, but I do. I remember them so very well.

fall family fun

Simply one of the sweetest families I know. The kids loved the camera and the camera loved them. They were full of life and innocence and joy. It was contagious!

a house divided

It was the first time I ever caught him lying to me. I wanted to scream but had no one to scream at. I was home alone when I realized it, and I couldn’t even think of what I might say or do when he got home. How did he manage to keep such a poker face for so long? I thought I could read him so well, but obviously, I was wrong. I didn’t know what else he had told me that I had to start second-guessing.

He taught me to whistle one of the USC fight songs, and told me it was UCLA’s fight song. So he, being the die-hard Trojan fan that he was, would walk around the house whistling one of USC’s songs, and the naive, ever-so-trusting wife that I was, would whistle my supposed UCLA fight song in retaliation. He let it go on for months. Until that evening when he was out, and I was home alone watching a USC football game. USC scored their first touchdown, their band started playing, and suddenly my ears perked up. That song. The song I’ve been whistling all these months. That’s not the UCLA fight song!

Ok, so I realize that it’s a bit pathetic that I had been such a terrible Bruin fan (a two-time Bruin, for that matter) that I didn’t even know my own school’s fight song. And it’s even more pathetic because UCLA is so huge with its sports life, as opposed to my first alma mater, UCSD, which had absolutely zero sports life to boast of. I suppose I have some responsibility to account for here. But even still! He lied to me. He lived that lie for months. And he loves to rub it in my face that I fell for it.  

We are without a doubt a house divided. A UCLA blanket lies next to a USC blanket. A UCLA baseball cap next to a USC cap. Mugs, plates, t-shirts, it all testifies of the animosity that pervades our otherwise happy home. Football season has started and I always re-realize just how obnoxious my otherwise kind-hearted husband becomes at this time of the year. I see the same Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde phenomenon in my Trojan friends whom I otherwise love and get along with wonderfully. The trash talk flies unabashedly and they take tremendous joy in waving those two ridiculous fingers in my face. One family of six in particular, the majority being Trojan alumni, even made arrangements to have the USC marching band come to play at their son’s wedding reception, big ridicuolous feathery helmets, sunglasses, brass and all. The Bruins there were outnumbered and we had to endure a good 30 minutes of Trojan cacophany, including the majority of the crowd yelling “UCLA sucks!” at the top of their lungs when it came time for the band to play “Tusk.” You can be sure my husband was eating it up.

For better or for worse is what I signed up for. And now that football season is here, it’s definitely for worse.

say yes to the dolphin

We first met at the Mount Hermon Career / Young Adult conference. You were a workshop speaker, and I was there from a small local seminary to network with pastors and other leaders. When we started talking on that last day of the conference, it was purely business on my end. I did, however, remember hearing a lot of people make unsolicited remarks throughout the week about how much you had impacted their lives for the better, and that made an impression on me. When we started dating, my boss laughingly said, “I didn’t send you there to find a husband!” I shrugged and said, hey, I networked.

We had similar temperaments and similar life goals. I felt incredibly safe with you. I remember saying to you early in our dating life that I just didn’t think there were guys like you out there anymore. I remember when you invited friends over for a sushi feast after a spectacular tuna fishing trip. For hours, I just watched people walk in and out of your house as if it was their own home. Your heart was and is so big. The sink got clogged with fish remnants and fishy water at one point in the evening and flooded the entire kitchen floor with fish-gut water. As calm as could be, you went about cleaning the floor as if it was just a small spill. I marveled.

You endured all the wariness that came from my lovingly protective parents, and weathered their grilling the night you asked for my hand. You recruited a dolphin to help with your proposal in Oahu, Hawaii. How could I say no to a dolphin? I kid. That was so creative, so outside-the-box, so you.

In our first months of marriage, I was so amazed that you were my husband. So I would constantly just address you, in awe, as “husband.” You would respond, “wife.” I find it hilarious that we still call each other as such, but with a different, more comfortable, and well, less romantic tone, and people who hear us find it amusing and almost insulting. But we know how it started.

Outside of your crazy sushi skills, I love that you went from having all of three items in your refrigerator – an old ketchup bottle, a small foil-wrapped packet of soy sauce, and a half-empty bag of baby carrots when we first met – to becoming one of the most elaborate cooks I know. Your repertoire now includes pulled pork tostadas, mango mochi, and sweet tamales. Oh how I have domesticated you!

People say that once you get married, you discover all the weaknesses of the other person. But I constantly think about how I have been so blessed to have seen your strengths and your integrity shine through more than anything. Of course we’ve had our differences and our issues that we have needed to work out, as any two individuals would when they try to bring their lifestyles and habits and preferences together under one roof. But you have consistently treated me with love and respect. You look away from scantily-clad women on the television and fix your gaze on me. When I have spoken with grumpy, sharp words, I see you pause and make a choice time and time again to only respond with gentleness and kindness. You have always made it clear that I am not a “pastor’s wife,” but I am your wife. You live an incredibly generous life. At times I struggle to keep up, but you are always patient, always gracious, and always inspiring. You have always sought to protect me, from things outside of me as well as the voices in my own head that can sometimes be too harsh. You have been a safe place for my heart. You show me through your life who God is, and who I am as His beloved.

I have no doubt I take you for granted more often than not. But as our 7-year anniversary approaches, I want you to know that there is no one else in the world that I would have rather spent the past 7 years of marriage with, and there is no one else I could imagine going forward in life with, in all its joys, storms, twists and turns.

I love you, husband.

- wife