7 Wonderful Years

Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.

Psalm 34:3

I adore my wife. Yep, I sure do. And today marks the day 7 years ago the Lord completed one of my favorite miracles when Jessica said, "I do." Truly, to have been navigated in and around and through the many obstacles that stood in my way to being married...not to mention to a woman so beautiful and perfectly suited for me, well that was a miracle. And I'm grateful. Joyous. Happy. Humbled. Not to mention in love. To quote the great Buddy the Elf, "I'm in LOVE and I don't care who knows it!!"

So, in order to let my wife know I love her, I took the risk of appearing cheesy (not the first time, by the way!) and bought two lovebirds. Imagine. One should bear in mind that we have never in our 7 years owned any pet. Now, Jess had been, of late, talking about birds and admiring at the pet shop in the grocery store. So I didn't feel that I was taking a completely blind leap. Still, I made the lady at the store this morning check with her manager to know for sure that if I came home with two lovebirds to tell my wife I love her and it didn't go so well, that I would be able to return the birds. You never know, Jess might have greeted me with, "What are you thinking? Not only is that the cheesiest, hairbrained idea ever, but we are not exactly here in Chile to stay!" So, feeling assured, I headed back to the house with roses and my little surprise. 

Now it's practically midnight and the birds are still here. Jess was surprised and pleased. Whew! She asked the kids what we should name them. Adrielle stated, without hesitation, that we should name the girl Elizabeth. According to Jessica, it only seemed right, then, to name the boy Mr. Darcy. And that was that! After a french toast breakfast (prepared by yours truly), we walked to the mall to get bird toys and celebrate our anniversary with the kids by buying them ice cream. Yum. Then we came home and tried not to give our new birds an aneurism while getting their cage in order. Then a quick lunch and off to drop the kids off at David and Linda's house while we went out on a date. Dinner and a movie. Sounds so plain...but you know what? It's a rare treat and we had a handsome time!

We thank our Lord Jesus for bringing us together, walking with us individually and as a pair, for loving us first so that we might love one another, and for all He has yet in store for the future.

My gift from Jessica was a picture video looking back over our 7 years (with what few pictures we have available to us here). We would like to share it with you, if you're interested.