10 years and a New Song

Somehow it's December and I haven't even blogged about the most significant event of the year for me. August 4, 2010 marked ten years of being married to Kyle McKillip. What a journey it has been together. We were 19 when we got engaged and 20 when we married. I think maybe we were both too young to be scared. I can only remember feeling a mix of total calm and bubbly excitement. The Lord has blessed us everyday since August 4, 2000. Sometimes the blessings were hidden and came wrapped as hardships. Sometimes they were compeletly evident as blessings and as direct gifts from His hands. On two precious occassions, they were wrapped in pink blankets and covered with little pink hats and I remember looking at Kyle both times in amazement that He allowed us to be a small part of His miracle making. Oh, how good He has been to us and to me to give me Kyle. Kyle is a constant compass, pointing me towards the Lord. He is the Lord's hands and feet as he walks hard roads with me, holds me in his arms and reminds me who our Father has created me to be. He lives out daily the Lord's tender affection for me and is a physical reminder that the Lord loves me dearly and accepts me just the way I am. He was precious when I married him, and has allowed the Lord to grow him and mature him into an amazing spiritual leader, father and husband. He simply gets better each year. I am so thankful that he's mine and even more that our sweet girls have him as an example of what love looks like. I think back to who we were - the young people we were when we got married - and like the song says, it is harder than we dreamed. Those young people never imagined marriage and life being so hard, throwing us so many curve balls. They also never dreamed of the how good the good days could be and how 10 years in, how much richer and fuller love and life could be. I think they probably could never have grasped all of the growing that the Lord would do in them and through them, all the hard work it would take to get there, the deep peace, happiness and contentment that could come with an ordinary, extraordinary life. I can't wait to see what the 70 year old uses and 50 years married uses think about how much more they know of love and the Lord than the 30 year old, 10 years married uses do.
I still love "our" old song by Keith Whitley (When You Say Nothing at All), but the one above brings tears to my eyes everytime I hear it and makes me love what I have in Kyle and in the Lord.