Fourteen years closer to forever

It really doesn't seem like that long ago, and yet it feels like a lifetime.

Fourteen years ago, I married the man for whom God made me.

Meeting him for the first time, I could never have imagined my life as it is today. He wasn't a Christian, and didn't really have a bright future. But he started coming to church with me, found Jesus, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I'll never forget his shaggy long hair pulled back into a pony-tail. I knew my Mother was going to kill me for giving him my number. But I couldn't resist those eyes. He looked at me as if I were the only one in the room. He made me feel beautiful.

He still does.

There have been days when I looked at this man who was so familiar, and yet a strange mystery, and wondered what I had done when I married him. There have been times when I realized that this wasn't what I signed up for.

And there have been times when I couldn't imagine my life without him, wondered how I could even breathe without him in my life.

He isn't perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but the beautiful thing is that I am not perfect, either. And somehow, in our individual imperfection, we find a beautiful harmony.

When I read I Corinthians 13, I can honestly say that he is 100% of all the things love is. I find that extraordinarily humbling, to say the least.

I have let him down, and he has forgiven me. He has been patient with me, when I have been filled with impatience. He is one of the kindest people I know. He is not easily provoked, so when he gets riled, I know it's about something big. He tries to see the good in everyone, which works to my benefit.

I could say that I don't deserve him, but the opposite is actually the truth. He doesn't deserve someone as selfish, whiney, petty, stubborn, and just plain obstinate as me.

But I'm so thankful he stays.