31 years ago...

31 years ago I went on a Halloween date with a girl... Through a series of unexplained (but providential) events... things like VW Beetles with holes in the floor, Ghost Rallies, scared best friends in haunted houses, break up tapes, get-back-together tapes, love notes, giant pumpkins, long-distance phone bills that made for angry parents, burned-out clutches, worm t-shirts, over-loaded moving vans, multiple faulty alternators, hospital trips, dragging mufflers, living-accommodations in stranger's basements, rat-houses, old houses, run over dogs that survive, short nights, crying babies, long work hours, more dragging mufflers, root-clogged drain pipes, more basement living, more crying babies, long-distance moves, wing-and-a-prayer bill paying, over-flowing septic tanks, fallen trees, used cars, faulty gas tanks, leaking radiators, more bad alternators, ice storms, no air-conditioning road trips to the beach, zero-dollar paychecks, paying $6.83 to sell your own home, moving van road trips with a dog and two kids, guest-room living, bats in the attic, water in the basement, faulty wiring, old pickup trucks without brakes, dying pets, bi- and tri-vocational living, paying to sell your second home, hospital bills, bad backs, stress tests, fake pandemics, kids graduating, an old red van that won't quit working... we have, by God's grace, continued to weather every storm.

I'm convinced now, that you are my final destination each and every day. If changing one thing in the course of my life would mean that I'm not with you, then I would never change a thing. I praise God for the sweet and bitter providence that has led me to you and kept me with you.

Love you, babe.