6 Month

Over dinner on our road trip home The Man and I began musing over how close we are to our six month wedding anniversary and how quickly the time has gone. The thought 'I hope the next six are as happy' formed in my head, and as I was about to say this I stopped. Wait a minute! Is that really what I want? I told The Man what I was thinking and he promptly exclaimed, "You're crazy! They've been wond...Humm....Well, maybe you are right..."

Silently we thought over the hard things of the last six months. There was that dramatic hormonal change I went though, which was hard on both of us, and those personal demons of mine that resurfaced and had to be dealt with, and still do. There was the death of The Man's Grandpa. I held him in my arms as his heart broke. I can still see his face, set as a stone and warm with tears, as the soldiers handed him that triangle flag to present to his Grandmother. And my own personal heart break as I recognized that one day, if I lived long enough, I would stand on that very same hill and hear the guns fire, watch the solemn salutes, and be handed my own triangle flag in honor of my beloved husband. And this was followed my a renewed determination to love him, enjoy him, and bless him as much as I could every single day, and to praise, love, and honor God in the loss of The Man or any of my loved ones. There was that whole month apart, well, a whole month minus that one night. And then there is the loss of our baby. And The Man held me in his arms as my heart broke.

I looked up and our eyes connected. Yes, the past six months held a lot of hard things. Yet. Yet we are so happy, and blessed, and joy filled. I don't think I have ever been more so. God has walked with us through all this, through the valley of the shadow of death. I stand closer to God and closer to my man than I ever have before, and I take so much joy from both of them! I understand more than ever that the joy of the Lord is my strength. I know I need to grow so much more, but I feel almost as if I have had a glimpse through that heavy curtain to the holy of holies, a glimpse of what my life could be if I could truly lay it down, truly give him everything. What a blessing the hard things can be.