An Open Happy Birthday Love Letter To My Marine

My darling man,

In just a few days, on August 1, we will celebrate your birthday, the day God delivered your particular passion, purpose and unique self into this world. 26 of those birthdays were filled with other people in other places and times that I did not get to share. I have lived those childhood memories though,  just as you have lived mine. We have lived every single day together for nearly 4 decades that followed.

God has grown you into a man like none other I have ever known nor surely will know again. I am beyond honored to have been chosen for you.

Wives, when they are happy wives, and I am a HAPPY WIFE, always say kind and flattering things about their man.

However, the things I have to say are not for flatteries sake but for destinies sake.

You had me at hello with that 20 something salt and pepper hair when we first met on the college campus. “He is probably to old for me” was my first thought, “he is going to be mine” was my second”.

I have watched you fight for our marriage when I wanted to give up; embrace and love a son as if driven by the knowledge that he was always meant to be yours; work long hard hours to provide for our family and my call to full time ministry; read God’s word every day from the front to the back so many times I have lost count (covers just keep falling off); keep God first in our finances from the day you learned of that commandment; honor and proclaim God’s goodness many times when I wondered if God saw us at all; live and walk in good old fashioned honor and integrity for every single employer and client you have ever served; stand upon grit–loyalty–spiritual fruit–a servants heart and a man of honor-–Semper Fi at all cost. I have seen you wrap your man sized hands around a one pound baby girl and never waver from faith in what God was doing; sit on the garage floor gritty from lawn work and explain failure and grace to a teenage son and get in BIG trouble with “G” while tossing every single grandchild sky hi in the swimming pool!

The last few years of life have taken us on a challenging new journey. Not so much the external ones we have lived over these years, but more of an unchartered internal journey.

A journey of questions like: Who are we now? What is left for us? Where can/will God use what He alone has done in us?

Aging is such a tender process isn’t it My Marine?

God says getting older is a good thing. The world doesn’t always echo God’s desires. We choose God!

Here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. – Caleb {Joshua 14:11}

They go from strength to strength until each appears before God. – Sons of Korah {Psalm 84:7}

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. – Apostle Paul {2 Cor. 4:16}

(Thank you Holley Girth! xoxo)

I discovered some great BIRTHDAY QUOTES that I hope will inspire you as much as they inspire me.

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
― Sophia Loren

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
― Robert Frost

“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.”
― George Bernard Shaw

And lastly—

“To all, I would say how mistaken they are when they think that they stop falling in love when they grow old, without knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

I have not–38 years, 3 children, 2 daughters-in-love, one soon to be son-in-love; and 5 amazing Grands later–and will never, stop falling in love with you.

My Marine–My Honey.

Happy Birthday!

Pat