we’ve been dating for 3 years today.

it’s funny when you look through the pages of your romance and see how you met to how feelings progressed, to how he told you his intentions, to how he proposed, how you were married, to now- to typing an anniversary blog that supposed to do some accurate justice of how thankful you are, how grateful you feel, and how blessed your relationship is.  I look back and see how far we’ve come, despite how realistically few the years have been.  It feels like forever, yet ambivalently also yesterday. 

for 3 years now, in each of those capsulated days, somewhere within those 24 hours, there are echoes of our voices saying i love you.  every day, without miss, without lacking, without disingenuity. 

i believe in words.  i believe that words spoken reinforce a relationship.  If the words spoken are constantly loving and encouraging, then the relationship thrives, considering other positive factors as well as verbal reinforcement.  If the words spoken are condescending, negative, doubtful, and hopeless, then the relationship will suffer because constant tearing down becomes the inadhesive and will further separate the cracks in between. 

for 3 years, we’ve reinforced our relationship daily by verbally pronouncing how we feel towards each other, positively, esp. in such a simple yet genuine “i love you”…it’s a gift given freely, but honestly.  and for 3 years, we’ve reinforced our relationship daily by not saying regretable things, such as offering to break up, esp. in anger or frustration, or option.  We continue this in our marriage promising to never mention divorce or separation.  The statistics show that 50% of couples, even in christian marriages, end in divorce.  But as life gets harder through marriage, the scariest thing to imagine is not divorce; it’s having to face the one day that one of us is called Home and the other will cease to hear the other say ‘i love you.’

i cannot thank God enough for my husband.  He continues to be a rock amongst our storms in life, always holding my hand when we’re at the feet of prayer and doorways of change.  I really am blessed to have married my best friend, my equal, and a man that i can admire and who others can look up to as well as rely on.  I know i am difficult to manage and understand, i can be stubborn and strong, vulnerable and emotional, spiritual and carnal, yet he manages to meet me, to ground me, to teach me, and to lead me…and i’ve found none other who has been successfully able to do so. 

i love you mahal. happy twelvesixteen3.0.  the days go by so quickly, but here we are. ravi zacharias once said that you make your life on earth a heaven or a hell by who you marry.  it makes me so joyful knowing that our days in heaven will be even so much more sweeter than it is now.