“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.” (Ephesians 5:25 CSB)

The much cliched saying is that time flies when you are having fun. I remember enjoying my high school experience thoroughly. I had a terrific community I was a part of in my school with strong traditions and lots of fun along the way. It never felt like it flew by, though, when the end of that season finally arrived it all felt very much surreal. The same thing goes for college. Those years felt faster, but I don’t remember consciously processing the thought that the time was moving particularly quickly. Given that, you would think that a span of twenty years as compared with that combined eight years would feel like an eternity. But the last twenty years have passed by in the blink of an eye. As much fun as high school and college were, it doesn’t even compare with the joys of marriage. Today I’ve been married for twenty years to my one and only, and the joys of the journey are only getting sweeter. Let me share a few with you.

I’m certain I’ve told this story before. Probably more than once. I fell in love with Lisa from pretty much the moment I saw her. When I got off the van from the airport with Christian and Bobby and walked toward the door of the dorm at Spalding University that would be my home for the next six weeks as a member of the Passport Camp staff, she was one of the quartet of ladies standing in the door waiting to greet us. Her eyes absolutely captivated me from the first time I caught them and I’ve never been the same since.

If I had any doubts about what my heart was doing, when she led the staff devotional that first night and stared into my eyes almost the whole time, they were completely obliterated. Maybe she didn’t do that really, but it sure felt like it. It was like the Hallmark movie I watched last night where the couple met and fell for each other pretty much immediately. Sure, there was still a journey to go on to wind up together, but you knew and they knew they would wind up together from their first meeting.

Our connection was such that before either of us had even said anything to each other about our feelings, before I had even expressed them out loud (she had because of girl talk, but that’s another story), my own mom noticed our connection. The staff got a weekend away when we transitioned to Missouri and my folks came down to visit. The camp’s assistant director got my mom to herself for a minute and told her she thought maybe I was interested in someone on staff and my mom immediately guessed correctly who it was. I think everyone around us knew how we were feeling before we did for sure.

Lisa is compassionate in ways most people can’t manage. She has a genuine heart for the people around her borne out of a deep love for them. Even when they drive her crazy, she still loves. The source of that is her love for Jesus and His love flowing through her, and it makes her all the more lovely. She’s beautiful, of course. That goes without saying although I have no intention of refraining from saying it. But more than just that, she’s beautiful in all the right ways.

My bride is my perfect helpmate. Like God designed Eve to do for Adam, she completes me. She makes me a better me than I am on my own. I’m more considerate of others. I’m more patient. I’m more compassionate for sure. I’m just better when she’s around than not.

Lisa is faithful. When she commits to something, she completes it. I can’t think of a single time she’s quit anything. This goes double when she’s doing something that involves another person. She will bend over backwards and tie herself in knots to go over and above when she has taken on a task for another person.

She’s thoughtful. She thinks all the time and that thinking is just nearly always focused on someone else, how she can do something to make life a bit easier or better or more enjoyable for another person. That might be someone at work, someone at church, someone in the community, a family member, one of our boys, or even me. And she thinks of the little things. She picks up on details that will make another person’s life better and looks to tend to those in practical, meaningful ways without being asked and before they’re needed.

Speaking of picking up on details, Lisa is a detail person to the nth degree. If most of the people around her are playing three-dimensional chess, she’s playing it in nine dimensions. If I try to make a plan to do something, I might spend half a day working on thinking through all the things necessary to make it happen and getting all those things in the right order. She could do it in ten minutes and think of a dozen things that are essential elements that didn’t even enter my thought process. Things run more smoothly when she’s involved. She makes the world around her better.

We have fun together. We laugh. We joke; especially corny jokes. We walk. We talk. We occasionally play a card game which she unfailingly wins. We go places and look forward one day to doing that a whole lot more. She’s the first one I want to tell everything. I don’t sleep nearly as well when she’s not next to me. I honestly can’t imagine doing life without her as a part of it.

It’s amazing how your life can get so completely wrapped up with another person. It’s not automatic. It takes work. Sometimes it takes hard work. As your two lives intertwine more and more completely you find places where the fit doesn’t seem like it’s going to work at first. But you stick with it through the hard conversations, through the mistakes, through the setbacks, and you find over time that there’s a way forward. Then comes the joy of things clicking into place. And then you repeat the whole process over and over as you become more and more a part of each other; more and more the one flesh God designed marriage to be in the beginning.

All of this is to say: I can’t imagine my life without her. I wouldn’t want to. After twenty years, being married to my bride is better than it has ever been, and between you and me, that’s really saying something because it’s been really good. It feels like we just said, “I do” yesterday. Time really has flown, but this is the most fun I’ve had in my life, so that’s really not a surprise. I can’t wait for what comes next. I love you, Lisa. Happy anniversary.