Today the huzband and I celebrate nine years of marriage.  It has been a wonderfully romantic day complete with breakfast in bed, flowers and secret gifts the huzband has sprinkled throughout the day.  He let me sleep in while getting little V ready for school and later tonight……..

Oh wait, scratch that.  I think I was daydreaming for a moment because the huzband is in Nepal, thousands of miles away from his beloved wife!  So instead of sleeping in and breakfast in bed, it was an early morning and a few bumps and bruises (for little V).  And perhaps, there may have been a bit of yelling at a fellow, very obnoxious, driver but really, that’s not important.  Thankfully though he can make up for it on Mother’s Day……oh right, he will still be gone.  (I do have to put in here that when I first wrote this, there were no flowers.  However, this afternoon I got a call from someone at the church office saying there was a package for me. I went to pick it up and lo and behold, the huzband had flowers delivered for our anniversary while he was away!  Awwww.)

All kidding aside, I am a blessed woman celebrating nine years of marriage with the huzband.

Somewhere in the past nine years, I set it in my heart that I wanted to be the kind of wife that encouraged the huzband to shoot for the stars.  I wanted to be one who would encourage and help him to not only dream but see him reach and surpass those dreams.  I didn’t want to be one that would stand in God’s way but be able to come along side the huzband, pushing him onwards.

Now don’t think that I decided to want to be like this and it happened.  You can ask the huzband, this took practice on my part.  I remember being critical at times, not thinking things were possible, holding the huzband back, saying ‘be more realistic’.  However, opportunities to practice this continued to come my way and with each opportunity, I noticed they kept getting bigGER.

There have been moments where I needed to let out my concerns which was really my selfishness in how it would affect ME, all to learn that it has only made our life more wonderful.  When the huzband sets his mind to something, his determination kicks in which propels him to the end.  What else kicks in is his desire to serve and honor his family along the way.  When the huzband decided he wanted to do an Ironman (still crazy), it was years in the making.  However, I look back and see how his hard work also brought our family closer together as we all got to be a part of it, from his wife doing her first triathlon and first marathon, to his daughter having a passion to be just as active as her dad, to being his cheering squad and water girls on his lonely bike rides.

during our first year of marriage at a Mutemath concert

So when I saw the wheels turning inside his head and the sparks glinting in his eyes as Mike talked about trekking in Nepal, I knew something was coming.  (Even though we had agreed the next person to go on a missions trip would be me!  C’est la vie!)  So I said yes to him being gone three weeks.  I said yes to him being gone for our anniversary and Mother’s Day.

I also said yes to him dreaming big.

I said yes to him wandering into the wilderness to bring a Message of Hope.

I said yes to the One who is that Message of Hope.

So even though he is heading to the beautiful coast of Thailand in less than 24 hours while working his way back home and perhaps my heart is a bit jealous, I also know that my God loves to lavish upon His children.  So yes, lavish upon the huzband.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.

You can read a bit from our 6th anniversary here and our 7th anniversary here.

the M family 

the M family in Colombia in 2010