Nine Years and counting

Nine Years and counting
Originally uploaded by gennabby.

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary! I do wish I could spend it with Matthew, but he is busy driving everything we own across the country. Nine years SOUNDS like a long time to me. That's not a boast; it's a testimony to what having a firm foundation can do for two very fallible, broken people. We are not the same people we were nine years ago, and I can say with confidence that we love who we are becoming together. We also love each other more now than we did nine years ago. More than ever, I feel like I have a real partner in this life. We have lots to figure out about how to love, forgive, encourage, and challenge each other; but we've also figured a lot out along the way these past 9 years. I love that when things are strained between us, we can't go for long without having to sit on the couch and work it out--or at least identify it and begin the process of making it right. That gives me hope--not that things will always be happy and lovely (one needs no more than a few months of marriage to figure that out), but that no matter what we face or who is being selfish or mean or resentful or ridiculous, we have ways of getting at the roots not just the symptoms.

Nine years of an intact marriage does not happen in a bubble nor does it just happen. It is celebrated and fostered and mended over and over with the help of faithful friends who keep pointing us back to the grace we need and the grace we need to give. We're learning how to be FOR the other, when things are going swimmingly and when we're mad as hornets at each other.

I just got to talk to Matty, who crossed the state line into Missouri while on the phone! Boy, I miss him. I am so excited about our new life and adventure in Princeton! Happy Anniversary, baby! Love you!!!!

By the way, if you ask Noah where he is moving, he will grin and say: Jersey!