Forty one tomorrow

He had blue eyes and a warm smile. He was older than me. And he loved his mother. These were the features that drew me to the man I eventually married.

I learned later that he was gentle, patient, and conservative. And a hard worker. Whatever the opposite of a procrastinator is, that was him. If a professor gave a 4 week deadline on a project, he was the guy who had it all but done the first week, and was distracted from his final tweeking the last week by all the people just starting and needing his help.

I remember around Easter of our first year together we were eating at Ponderosa and he started to cry. I said, "Why are you crying?" He responded, "Jesus died, for me." And he had me.

I said, there are, maybe, guys who are more charming, more romantic, better dancers, but all that, I can live without. This passion for Jesus - that's something I can't.

So the man I married was a wonderful, Jesus-loving, tenderhearted hardworker.

But the amazing thing is that he has become more wonderful, more godly, more pleasant, more wise, stronger, braver, and better looking with each passing year. Then he was a young man, a new husband, a new employee. Now he is a good husband (indication: happy wife), a great father to 12 gifts from the Lord, a manager and a leader, a songwriter and worshipper, a man of courage and discernment and passion. He is bold and deliberate. He is a real man.

Tomorrow he will be forty-one. Forty one years of getting better and better. How amazing my husband will be when he is 60!!