We celebrated my husband’s birthday this week. Mark has touched so many lives over the years. And in this season of thanksgiving, I want to express my gratitude to him publicly:
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Thank you Mark for seeing inside of me, something that I couldn’t envision alone: Christ in me, the Hope of Glory.
Thank you for slowly untangling my misconceptions of men and allowing me to trust again.
Thank you for your wisdom – that gives our family “next steps” when we can’t see our feet.
Thank you for your questions that lead me to those “ah-ha” moments that you already knew.
Thank you for holding your anger – checking your tongue when I back into the neighbor’s car or forget to do something you have asked of me.
Thank you for being tender with me. Your gentleness moderates my rashness.
Thank you for loving me through your actions – for doing piles of dishes, loads of laundry and taking many a turn with the girls on those sleepless nights.
Thank you for listening to the volumes of words – spewing passionate and spinning circles. In doing so, you allowed me to be heard rather than be fixed, the source of my true need.
Thank you for being a man of the Word – a man with authority because what you say is who you really are.
Thank you for being someone that I can respect and not someone I just have to respect.
Thank you for shielding me from the ugly, so that I can focus on the beauty of the Kingdom.
Thank you for pampering me – for sitting through countless musicals when you would rather be at a basketball game – for grilling endless gourmet meals when you had rather had Frito pie – for buying me a new outfit while you wore ten-year-old shoes – for turning my dream vacations into reality.
Thank you for making me face the issues – for not letting me go to bed angry – but keeping me up to talk so that we could get to the other side of our selfishness.
Thank you for giving up on understanding me – and instead, just accepting me, as is.
Thank you for praying for me when I was too weak to pray for myself.
Thank you for the years of laughter as well as tears; contentment mixed with anxiety, misunderstandings which led to greater enlightenment. But mostly, thank you for your commitment to love me like Christ loves His bride.
I love you.
Kandy