Living I Do

It’s rainy and dreary outside and the boys were fighting about markers when I woke up.

Kris and I both woke up in the middle of the night because of a storm and didn’t sleep much all night.

He has an early meeting, I have to make lunches and get kids ready for school.

He wrote a check for some bills and left them on my desk.

I rinsed out dishes and tucked them into the sink until I could get to them.

I almost stepped on a wasp on the kitchen floor. The kind of slow moving wasp that you know shouldn’t be around in this cold air. I gently folded him into a paper towel and laid him in the trash can without crushing him.

He drove off without complaining about the toys left out in the garage.

I made the kids pick up the toys in the garage.

From the looks of it, today is not a remarkable day.

14 years ago though, it was the day we marked as ours.
14 years ago, we got up to a very cold November day with clear skies and we each prepared ourselves for something special.
14 years ago we drove to church in sunshine and left surrounded by snowflakes.
14 years ago we gathered with friends and held onto the hands of family members, we kissed our old lives goodbye and said “I do.”

I do what?

I do: live out days like today with a continued determination to love through piles of laundry and stacks of bills.
I do: look over the table surrounded by little boys, who rarely like what’s served, and smile at our joint effort to provide.
I do: laugh over the little things, cry over the unseen and pray over the mountains.
I do: wake up on rainy days, with puffy eyes and groggy head and move forward, pushing the kids a bit, entertaining the little crowd of three over breakfast and wait expectantly for a well dressed man to step out of his office and kiss me goodbye for the day.
I do watch the door close and pray silently that God would keep him safe on the wet roads.

I do.

The weather did not see fit to spoil us today, but then we’ve never needed cooperation from the weather to make our marriage what it is. We committed to live it out, to choose love, rain or shine when we said “I do.”

Happy Anniversary Kris. Thank you for living out the “I do” every day with me.