Dear Matt,
On a hot Saturday afternoon in July sixteen years ago, I stood face-to-face with you and made you a promise. I promised to love you – and only you – for the rest of my life. I promised that I would stand by you through all the ups and downs that life would bring us. I promised to be your biggest supporter, your greatest encourager, and your best friend. I promised to care for you in sickness, rejoice with you in good times, cry with you in sad times, and celebrate with you in joyful times.
Over the course of our marriage, we’ve endured every one of those times. We’ve definitely had our good times; I think of our honeymoon and our trip to Israel, the moments we found out we were expecting, the days our children were born, the joy of moving out of our apartment from hell into our first home, the excitement of building our second home. But we’ve also had some bad times. I won’t recount those here – you and I both know all too well the pain of those difficult days.
We’ve had our share of celebrations in sixteen years: milestone birthdays, you passing the A.R.E., me earning my master’s degree, holidays and making our own traditions, new jobs, new responsibilities, new ministries. It’s been my honor and privilege to share in those milestones with you, to celebrate with you, to be a part of your joy and happiness. But it’s also been my honor to share in the sad times with you…to cry with you over the death of your parents, to grieve together the loss of my dad and grandparents, to hold one another as we said goodbye to beloved pets, to mourn the loss of friends and friendships as life – and we – moved and changed.
And I thought I’d already been down the road of caring for you in sickness. The whole appendectomy adventure was scary enough…I didn’t want to play with fire any more. God saved you once…I wasn’t willing to run the risk of testing Him again. But God definitely had other plans for you – for us – this year. I never would have dreamed of you having to face cancer like you did. And seeing the fear in your eyes as you told me the diagnosis is an image I’ll carry with me forever. But you faced it bravely – like you face everything in your life – in a matter-of-fact way, knowing that the future was beyond your control. As I watched you endure chemo and all its unpleasantness, I was so proud of you. Proud for the way you handled the difficulty with humor. Proud for the way you didn’t let it get you down. Proud for the way you managed to continue to work, to do projects around the house, to play with your children and be involved in their lives, and still manage to be a husband. Proud for the way you didn’t let it rattle your faith, but rather strengthen it.
Now that we’re facing a time of “in health”, I can honestly say I’m grateful for the past year. Even with all the difficulties, the stress, the hardship, the lingering medical bills…I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the way this trial brought us together, the way we were able to lean on each other, the way we shared every step of the journey. I’m grateful for the privilege of honoring those vows I made to you on that July afternoon. I’m grateful for the lessons we learned – about God, ourselves, and true friendship – that we might not have learned otherwise. And, strange as it may sound, I’m grateful for the possibility of losing you…because it showed me what a treasure I have in you and how deeply I love you, want you, and need you in my life. How much I enjoy being around you. How much I desperately want to grow old…well, older…with you. How much I want to sit beside you as our children graduate from high school, college, and possibly even beyond. How much I look forward to seeing you walk our daughter down the aisle and dance at our children’s weddings and hold our grandchildren. How I look forward to someday being just the two of us again and creating new adventures together.
I’m so happy to celebrate this day with you. I’m glad for all the experiences we’ve shared so far, and I’m excited about what lies ahead. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy this day, this time, this moment with you. I love you and forever will be
Yours,
Debbi