Happy Birthday, Baby!

July 16. That's when this picture was taken; this, the first picture of us. You were standing a few feet away from me in the first picture your mom randomly snapped, and I said, "That's not a picture of us; this is a picture of us!" And so it began.

In all my years of waiting and wondering, praying and asking God to just bring you along already, never could I have imagined what I was waiting for. How could God make someone so perfectly just for me? It was as though He fashioned each of us so intricately as to only fit with each other; the more I get to know you, the more ways I know this to be true.

I also never realized what true love was really all about - how much I would have to give in order to love you, but how much that giving would fill me with joy and deepen our bond. I didn't know the vastness of the sacrifices to be made in knowing another person so deeply; giving up my rights to myself, and knowing that our journey toward becoming one would be filled with a new understanding each day of love as God intended it to be. Love that's completely selfless and relentless in its grace and forgiveness and acceptance. I've learned to love in ways I could not comprehend before you.

So, on this your birthday, I thank God above for the day He created you. I am thankful for the lessons you have learned on your journey to meet me, lessons that have made you the man you are today. I am thankful for the love you have given to me - the depth, the honesty, the tenderness, and the patience it contains. I am amazed at the way you see me - the eyes of love that see me the way God does and just the way He made me to be. I have (on rare occasions) wondered what my life would be like without you. And 8 months after our first date, I have no point of reference for my life without you in it. You are intertwined into everything that I am.

So here's to a future of house remodeling projects, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, trips by train, NASCAR races, monkey bread, love bank points, Christmas decorations, enough Diet Pepsi to fill the earth's oceans, and gazing at the stars from our backyard. And many, many, many more birthdays.

Happy birthday, baby. I love you lots and lots.