My Sweet Husband and His First Love

My sweet husband posted the nicest post on his blog in honor of our four year anniversary yesterday.  (Check it out here.)  He's such a huge romantic at heart!  He tries to come across as a gruff bear sometimes (and does in fact succeed at that at times!) but in reality, he's just a big cuddly teddy bear.

I love the fact that he's not ashamed to talk openly about his feelings and that he's not ashamed to cry.  When he tears up, it always wrecks me.  Especially when he's singing and worshipping.  He'll get quiet and I'll glance over to see him communing with the Father and it totally wrecks me every time.  It reminds me why I love him so much.  Why we're still together - even with all our rocky times and ups and downs (it's been a wild four years, let me tell you!).  We're together because I'm not his first love.  His first love redeemed him from the pit about 18 years ago and turned his life around.  His first love didn't care about his past, but saw the promise and the potential in him that I see.  His first love is still the One he turns to when things get hard... and I wouldn't have it any other way.  Because his first love is my first love, too - my beloved Jesus.  He's definitely the glue that holds us together.  Without Him, who knows where either of us would be.

It's hard to believe that it's only been four years ago that we said "I do".  Sometimes it seems like we've known each other forever - we are soul mates and I firmly believe that God intended for us to be husband and wife - that He foreordained our union from before the foundations of the world.  All the stuff that we went through to get to March 11, 2006, was preparation for our lives today.  All the yuckiness of my first marriage. All the pain of Greg's first wife's fight with cancer.  All those things made us who we are.  Made us appreciate what we have together.  One would hope that we would appreciate it enough so that we wouldn't fight...  not the case yet, but we are pressing on toward that goal!  And I have to say that our fights are fewer and farther between than they used to be.  (Thank You, Lord, for that!)  But I suppose that's what happens when you have two very passionate individuals, trying to learn to live together and trying to learn to be parents at the ripe old ages we are.  It's a good thing that God's grace is sufficient - we need large daily doses of it to see us through.  

So sitting here, four years later, do I have any insights or flashes of wisdom about where God's going to take us in the next four years?  Nope, not at all.  But I do know this:  that I love my husband more today than I did at the beginning.    That I'm more committed to him than I would have thought possible, that I want to be by his side no matter what comes our way, and that we're in this 'til death do us part.  No, Gregory's not my first love.  But I'll bet if you asked him, he'd have the same response that I did - he wouldn't have it any other way.