Married 20 Years
Twenty years later, I still tell people Katie is my best friend in the whold world because, well, that's the easiest way to communicate to others that I still really like her. But honestly that title isn't quite right. It doesn't capture the realitry of our relationship. She is so much more than my friend. She is so much more than my wife. Twenty years later, Katie isn't an important part of my life—she is my life. She's not my best friend, she's my best life.
There is no me without her. We share the same feelings, we share the same successes and struggles, we share the same responsibilities. We often share the same brain. When she's not around, it's not that it's like I'm missing a part of me, I am missing a part of me. Twenty years ago, two individuals came together to create a new life together. Twenty years later, those individuals are gone. By all accounts, Project: One Flesh seems to have been a real success.
It's been a lot of life. Over the past twenty years we've lived in something like 12 homes in four countries. We've experienced two waves of war, several health struggles, and years of infertility. We've made and lost (and lost track of) incredible friends, and our ever-changing ministry has been a great joy and an incredible challenge.
We've introduced two incredible children to the world—a ministry neither one of us could have predicted to go the way it has. We are thankful to have the love and support of our families. We are blessed by the sincere care of amazing brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Our hearts live in so many places at one time. It's a burden and a joy.
Twenty years. It's so much time, and yet it's not. It's nowhere near as long as we're planning. Lord willing, in 30 years we'll be smiling at my immature comments from today about happiness and heartache and what it means to be one flesh. Дай Бог.
The one constant on the entire journey has been the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father, the giver of all these amazing blessings and the only true anchor through the storms. When we have been faithless (and we have), He has been faithful.
So today we celebrate 20 years. There was a time when we imagined we would be marking this occasion with some extended tropical getaway (or a visit to Middle Earth even). Sounds nice. Unfortunately that's not this year's plans. Today, we're thankful to have scrounged a few hours of alone time together. (We do hope to piece together a night or two away in the upcoming weeks or months. We'll see.)
By all appearances, our ten-year anniversary trip to Italy more resembles the trip we thought that twenty would be. That was in the days before children. Our first ten years were well documented in the ten-year anniversary slideshow I made for Katie (see that again here if it's been while). The second decade won't be getting that special treatment. Katie's still the star of my movie, but those little divas in the other room demand a whole lot more of the attention these days (and their managers are no help).
Twenty years later, I still love this woman more than anyone else in the world. Twenty years later, I'm amazed that the roots of our love grow deeper and wider still.
Come let us lie together
under the old evergreen oak,
beneath the sapling we planted
in the days of our youth.
Sadly, we somehow don't have have a photo to mark every anniversary. There are several years missing (and neither of us have the fogiest idea of what we did to celebrate Year 16). Below, I've collected photos from all our anniversaries, or at least from days near the time of those anniversaries. To those of you holding out that we've not changed a bit, here's your proof.
