Thankful Thursday

With the celebration of Valentine's Day yesterday, I simply forgot about Thankful Thursday, but I don't WANT to forget about Thankful Thursday! :) How can I forget to be extra thankful on this particular Thursday, when the day is all about love and I've been blessed beyond measure with an abundance of it?

On Valentine's Day 16 years ago, I was beyond over the top with excitement. I was sporting a mighty fine diamond engagement ring on my left hand, freshly placed there by the man of my dreams the night before. And yet I was spending this day alone because he was attending the funeral of his grandmother who had just passed away. I remember thinking over the next couple of days before I would see him again that maybe it was all a dream...maybe I had imagined that he had chosen me to spend the rest of his life with. But it wasn't a dream and I hadn't made it up! I was going to be married to God's best for me -- the one I had waited a lifetime to meet.

Six months later we walked an aisle, said the vows, gave a kiss and off we went! A few days at the beach and then back to the reality of life. I can honestly say that our good days have far exceeded the number of bad days we have had. Perhaps my husband said it best last night in the prayer around our dinner table. With our sweet son on one side and our precious daughter on the other, he thanked God for our love...an everlasting love.

The interesting thing about an everlasting love is that it is not dependent on the day's events or circumstances. It is not based on past failures, words left unsaid or mistakes made. It is fueled by the covenant that we share and the commitment we have made. It is what makes even the good days better and it is the wind that opens your sails on the days when your feel less than qualified to fulfill your calling of wife and mother. It is the constant current underneath everything that happens in your life, making the improbable possible and the mundane miraculous. Sometimes it is loud and demonstrative and sometimes it is in the quietness of ordinary days that it seems most evident.

So, for Thankful Thursday, I'm most thankful for the love of my life -- my precious husband. I told him in my card to him yesterday that only God could take two people capable of going two different directions, bring them together and make something so beautiful -- so blessed! An amazing and everlasting love, indeed!

All this and Jesus, too!
Dori