when eleven years pass by too quickly...

it's up there on our bedroom wall - that moment captured eleven years ago after our i do's had been said and you had kissed me for the very first time...

i looked at those two faces for a while today and was caught up in memories...

and i wondered how time could move so quickly.

your face was the only one i looked for at the top of that aisle, your smile was the one i longed for.

i'll never forget the way you looked as you waited for me...


i am caught by those two faces and while they look so very familiar, i find i don't really know them anymore...

you have white in your hair now, that rich black unmarred when i first saw you...


you walked into that classroom and pulled that toque down over your head, but i caught a glimpse of you and you captured me.

those four years between that moment and the moment you asked to pursue me were filled with so much pain and yet they were worth all of it because when His moment was right for us, i knew i would be safe with you.

your beard is becoming more salt than pepper and there are crows feet by your eyes and those lines carry the truth that you find Hope in every situation, you find something to laugh about no matter how dark the moment and i want to hold the snapshots i have of you now because someday, this day will be a distant memory and i don't want to take you for granted.


she looks so happy, but i know what the next few years would bring for her...for you. those first years weren't easy and you were so patient with her...with me.  your love for her made her stronger...do you know that?  can you even fathom the gift that you are? that girl in the picture - she wears the same skin as me, but i'm not her any longer and there are not enough words to tell you how grateful i am to Jesus and to you for your choice to stay faithful to the one so very timid.

i started praying for you when i was twelve.  i remember the moment.  i remember the coolness of the basement and which wall i was facing when it hit me, i needed to pray for my future husband now. i love that i have been praying for you for 21 years and i love that i have been your wife for 11 and that you are the answer to so much of what i prayed to Jesus for.

i remember the years that we fought with each other, how painful those years were.  i was always trying to run, wild with fear that i was going to fail, trying to prove to you that i would.  you fought for me long before i ever fought for us and your steadiness humbles me, because you could have walked away so very long ago and it makes me love you even more because your love is so very sure and where would i ever want to go but straight into your arms?

the longer we are married, the more i realize how short these days are...each day with you is one less with you and the more i gain the more i lose and time keeps moving us closer to that moment when we will see Jesus face to face and i want to love you well each moment we are given.  i want to find the treasure that is hidden in the light and in the dark and i want to discover all that is priceless in you.

i want to love you well, tony baker.


each year that i write on our anniversary, i include a photo from our wedding day...but today, i am deciding not to. today, i want to capture who we are now...because He has brought us so very far from those vows said with trembling and with hope...

He has brought us here, to a love and a trust and a relationship deeper and truer than i ever dreamed was possible.  He has brought us here in all our brokenness and humanity and allowed us to experience life and all of its ups and downs together...

the faces in our pictures from then and now may bear identical similarities, but the story that He has written on our hearts make us so very different.

so to you, i want to wish a very happy anniversary.

you have my heart and the rest of my days, always.

i love you, so very, very much.

all my love...

when it's not very loud...

i have stood on a frozen field with my face lifted up to a night sky alive and dancing with the blues and greens and purples of the northern lights.

and i have felt the awe of Him.


i have stood on the edge of the land beneath my feet and felt the crash of the waves of an ocean pounding deep.

and i have been shaken with the proof of His power.

i have listened to the wind whip itself into a frenzy, watched the black clouds above me swirl and green and form into the beginnings of a funnel that has one seeking safety.

and i have wondered for His mercy.

i have laid my body down 3 times and listened as another's heartbeat deep within me has filled the air that surrounds me.

and i have known Him as Creator.

but.

it's when harsh words have been loudly spoken,

when one of us is firmly planted in the hall,

the other braced in against the kitchen sink,

and pain flying in all that space between...


when i find myself on the floor of our closet,

tears pouring down and i hear that door open...


when he lowers himself

and brings us both to the same level;

when he says those words that break through the ice,

reaches out his hands,

asks me to look into his eyes,

and we forgive each other...


it's in those moments,

the ones void of lights and noise and movement...

the simple ones

that i come to know Him as

Healer,


Redeemer,

Friend.


and He is there

and so intimately close

in the hush of a gentle whisper...

here and there...

while we were here,

they were there,

while we slept and rested and walked the beach for hours, you held them close and loved them and brought out the best that is in each one.

you gave so much of yourselves...

and they soaked it all in.


thank you.

thank you for loving us the way you do.

for being a safe place for our hearts when we are weary.


i hope gracie has recovered...

all photos from there were taken by my sweet sister and brother-in-law.

the one where 10 years flew by {10.06.01 ~ 10.06.11}...

the rain fell outside the window as i turned pages of time.

pictures capturing faces of the ones who had gathered around us in celebration...

faces of  some who now stand on heavenly soil, gathered around The Lamb...

faces who behold His Glory.


i pulled out pictures from behind clear plastic,

to get a closer look.

to hold missed ones close once again.

and i could hear it, those strains of the wedding music chosen.

i could feel it, the way my heart beat wildly in my chest.

clothed in white, standing behind those closed sancturary doors...

i longed to be with him.

ten years.

ten.

years.

how could it have moved so quickly?

the doors opened and i felt the hush.

i felt your smile deep down in my bones.

i couldn't take my eyes off of you.

we claimed ground that day,

in that little country church out on the open prairies.

we claimed our ground and we sealed it with bands of gold and a kiss you waited until our wedding day to give me.

i feel as though i took a breath and ten years have flown by...

and how can i tell you how much i love you?

how can i tell you what these ten years have done?

our wedding day was beautiful,

pure joy.

but this journey?  this passage of time?  these ten years that happened while i blinked?

full joy.

despite the losses, the sorrows, the times of pulling away,

you are home.

time has taught me that life can rage and fall apart all around us,

but that moment that found you dressed in black and me all wrapped up in white? we spoke promises that are unmovable.

we spoke holy words that sunk deep in a brief moment of time,

that are anchored strong in a Strong God.

and life can crumble, kids can scream and miles can be traveled long and paved with tears,

but we are not without a Shelter,

we are never without a reason for joy.

thank you, tony, for standing at the end of an aisle ten years ago.

thank you for holding out your hand and wrapping me up in you.

thank you for promising me until death and for humoring my wish to have a mansion of gold right next to yours.

thank you for marrying a messed up girl and praying me into the woman i am becoming.  

i am hopelessly, passionately in love with you...

ten years have only deepened the fire.

other memories...

..are filling my heart today.
besides the typical, "8 years ago today, i was trying to get the dirt marks off of my train before i went to the church to walk down the aisle and become your wife."

no, today, my heart is filled with memories of the very, very beginning of us.

do you remember when you sat next to me during the evening service?  you held the hymnal between us and proceeded to sing in the highest voice possible.

if i hadn't had been so nervous, i probably would have laughed out loud...

do you remember coming up behind me and asking if i was feeling well after a chapel that i had slept through on the bench?

do you remember telling me you liked my hair as i worked in the humid and hot dish room?

do you remember that you were wearing a yellow and blue striped shirt the day i not-on-purpose-at-all followed you from one building to the next?

do you remember?

do you remember the anticipation of that first phone call?  my heart was pounding, my hands were shaking, i was terrified you would forget to call...

you didn't.

do you remember that moment in the field, placing your toque on my cold head, and then meeting my gramma?

do you remember raking leaves?

going for coffee?

playing "idiot"?

going for donuts?

the first "i love you"?

the first time you touched my face?

the first time you told me your name was actually "tony" and not "anthony"?  goodness, i still can't get over why that was such a shock...

oh tony.  i don't want to forget.  i don't.


every moment that led up to this day 8 years ago is locked away in my heart, kept safe...kept hidden.


i cherish you, not just because you are my husband.  i respect you, not just because Jesus asks me to.  i love you, not because of what you do for me...


i do all of those things because of who you are.

and who you are is more than i ever dreamed of, hoped for, prayed for.  who you are is exactly who i hope our son grows up to be like.  who you are is exactly the type of man i pray our daughters marry.

i love you.


i love you.


i love you.


happy anniversary, my love...

7 years...

i feel as though i've been counting down all weekend. reminiscing about key moments leading up to the most amazing day of my life. the nerves, the excitement, the *first* kiss. i love the memories i have from the day i became tony's wife.

but there should be another category. 8 years. october 3, 2000 was the day that tony and i came to an understanding. an understanding that we would wait. we would wait to put a label on our relationship - we would focus on a friendship first. we would wait to hold hands until my *man fast* was over that christmas. we would wait to kiss until our wedding.

and there were moments that i naively thought that marriage would mean a blissful ever after. yes, there has been blissful moments, but there have been hard moments too. moments where i have needed to grow, heal, change - but i haven't done it alone. as i've grown, healed and changed, our marriage has too.

i've been so blessed to watch tony become the man that God created him to be - and i've felt so safe as tony has watched the woman that i was created to be, emerge.

11 years ago, i saw tony for the first time. 8 years ago, my voice trembled as we talked over doughnuts and coffee. 7 years ago, i pledged my life to his. 1 minute ago, i looked into his eyes and told him i loved him all over again.

looks like we're making it.