The first pic above keeps with my personal DPP challenge this year, and the second represents the work of a husband to love his wife well.

A countdown has taken place on our little kitchen chalkboard. In the seven days leading up to my birthday Jeremy has celebrated in that small space, reminding me each day that I was on his mind. We’ve come a long way, this man and me, and he has done a stellar job being the Chief Celebrator this week. If you know anything about enneagram, then you can guess that I’m the tradition-and-celebration person around here as an enneagram 2. It’s totally in my wheelhouse to try to make someone feel special. Jeremy’s wheelhouse is more in the genius department—not in the IQ sense, though that may be true too, but in the detail sense. I’m watching my Favorite Web Developer (and enneagram 5) make sure that I have the gifts that I’d really like, the food that I’d really like, the drinks that I’d really like, the proper cheer that I’d really like, and he’s even motivated our child to join him in a decent understanding of birthday customs—and it has cost him. It’s not his scene but he does it because it brings me joy.

I love him.

Twenty-four years ago I spent my birthday with a guy I had just started dating. I couldn’t even recognize how smitten I was until he laid his feelings out on the table, and then I fell in love hard. Right now he’s picking up takeout for my birthday supper. I’m so grateful for this long vision of marriage, the one where we are bound together in Christ. We couldn’t have made it to this point without a whole lot of grace from the Lord, and He has been faithful to us. Each year we become more and more aware of his goodness.

PS. In the background you can see a new suitcase. It’s a fantastic gift that should have the word “hope” written across it in bold letters, for it broadcasts hope to me with its very existence. I’m here, homebound, at the end of 2020, but soon I’ll travel again with this guy!