Fifteen Years

You slide your hand across the restaurant table to cup mine, as you have done many times before. We bow our heads and you lead us in grace for our meal and in thanks for our fifteen years of oneness. That number seemed so very far away when we first started out together, in fact, we couldn't even fathom it. We knew we'd be married forever but marking numbers was unattainable in our thinking back then. Four children, two fish and a kitten later, we stand on the brink of the rest of our lives together. Life as parents, life in ministry, life as one. It hasn't been an easy road, but it's been a road full of grace.

When we said, "I will", did you picture this? Things as they are? The blessings? From driving each other to university classes in the morning and taking the afternoon off to "play house" to parenting in the night watches and growing in wisdom. We were so young and idealistic. Did I even know how to be a wife? Would I have listened had anyone shown me? The matchless grace! It covers a multitude of mistakes. Thankfully, we know the One who marks our way, who buffers our straying from the straight road.

You lift your head, our eyes lock and in a moment, fifteen years flash by in my mind. How we got here so quickly, I don't know, but what I do know is that I want to spend the next fifty holding your hand across the table.