Seven Years and Fourteen Days of Love

The wind that fills your sails

The hand that lifts your veil

The moon that moves your tides

The sun coming up in your eyes

The wheel that never rusts

The spark that lights you up

All that you been dreaming of and more, 

So much more

I want to be your everything

- Keith Urban

I will never forget the evening of February 14, 2006. Youth group was meeting at my house, and I scurried around like any 17-year-old giddy at the thought of spending the evening with 20 of my best friends. I mingled and hugged and answered the door dozens of times, stopping short when I opened the door to a quartet of unfamiliar faces. A Southern man, his shy daughter, and two handsome sons stood beaming in the doorway. They were new, from Charlottesville, and had been assigned to our small group. They introduced themselves amid a flurry of impeccable manners, practically bowing as we all shook hands. I was instantly smitten with them. Daniel laughed and teased and played ping pong with reckless abandon. Catherine's beautiful eyes sparkled as she talked about her love of writing - a woman after my own heart. And Nathan...well, he adored country music, my latest passion. I talked to him about Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban, and his face lit up like the 4th of July.

Soon we gathered for group, and I tried not to think about the plaid-and-jeans country boy sitting right behind me. In keeping with the holiday, our leader talked about Christ-centered relationships. "When Jesus is the center of your universe, everything else will fall into its proper place around Him." That little talk re-grounded me countless times through seven years of romance with that country boy. What began as an innocent teenage friendship - having everything in common, long walks talking on the phone, emails and texts and MySpace comments, debates and homework and bus ride drama and love triangles - turned the corner when he talked to my dad the night I graduated high school. Three years of long-distance dating became a year of engagement and planning for the future, culminating in the wedding of my dreams and a road trip down south to a new life where we had no one but each other. We danced at our wedding to Keith Urban's "I Want to Be Your Everything" - a song on the country mix CD he made me just weeks after we met (he's never been one to beat around the bush).

Now it is 2013, and we celebrated our 7th Valentine's Day together. This day is extra-special to me, not only because it's the day we met, but because gifts are my love language. Christmas and my birthday are the best days of the year. I obsess over holidays - especially the romantic ones. But this year, my poor boy has been up to his ears in work and projects for the past few months. Instead of letting the holiday slip by in danger of being forgotten, I decided to go all out for him. Who says gifts and romance have to be a guy's world, anyway?

Introducing: The 14 Days of Love

Strawberry Nutella French Toast

Starting February 1, I gave Nate little gifts and notes leading up to Valentine's Day. Most were painfully cheesy...but it's the thought (and the food) that counts. 

14 Days of Love gifts & notes

Some days he needed a little help finding his gifts...

I mailed a love letter to his office (surprise, babe!). Mail apparently gets lost in the labyrinth of Corporate Exxon. When it arrives, I hope his boss makes him open it in public.

I bought a fancy picnic basket with all the works, a waterproof blanket, and the fixings for a picnic fit for royalty. I designed a treasure hunt leading him from work to a secluded, romantic location where I and our picnic awaited him. Then, the weather turned wretched. And the picnic had to be moved indoors. The clues led him on a wild treasure hunt to...our house. He was mightily confused, but it was oh-so-romantic (100 tea lights helped a little). 

Living Room Valentine's Picnic

My new favorite thing on earth.

I framed his favorite picture of our Hawaii trip and made a date jar full of wild and funky ideas for 2013. And he presented me with a darling heart-shaped birthstone pendant. This love, folks...it just keeps on getting stronger. 

I love you, Nate...

May 2006 - our first picture together.

Kenny Chesney concert - 2007

2008 Photoshoot

June 26, 2009. Engaged!!

Wedding Day, June 20, 2010

One-year Anniversary, 2011

Hawaii, 2012

7th Valentine's Day, 2013

...and I will love you for the rest of my life. You are God's best gift to me!

Year Two of an Awfully Big Adventure

I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. 

I hold myself supremely blest - 

blest beyond what language can express; 

because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine...

To be together is for us to be at once free as in solitude, as gay as in company. 

- Jane Eyre

I hope I never forget a single detail of June 20, 2010. The sun shone brightly, and the normally sultry summer air was as clear and radiant as I felt. I woke up early and finally tore the last link of the looong paper chain we had made together. After three years of dating, our 359-day engagement should've been a breeze. Instead it was one of the most agonizing things I'd ever gone through. And on that day, June 20, it was finally over - the endless waiting, the "already but not yet" tension to define boundaries on a relationship that was so much more than dating, but not marriage. In just a few hours we would finally - finally! - belong to one another.

I squirmed and butterflied my way through that never-ending day. Bridesmaids and beauticians drifted into my living room; someone showed up with a lunch tray but eating was the last thing on my mind. Nathan and I had decided not to communicate for the two days between the rehearsal dinner and wedding ceremony, and all I could think about was what he was doing and how he must be feeling. The words that had been swimming in my head for days finally took form, fueled by the butterflies, and I scrambled to my bedroom to finish writing my vows to him in a tiny notebook. 

Finally it was time to go. Sisters, bridesmaids, parents, suits and dresses piled into our trusty family van, and we careened down rustic back roads accompanied by many bumps and a near-death experience when Dad, caught up in the moment, failed to notice a red light. We pulled up to the stately white mansion nestled among acres of forested mountains, and amid cries of "The boys are almost here! Hurry!!" raced past throngs of volunteers hooking up sound equipment, placing tables and chairs and making lemonade.

Sequestered on the third floor of that grand mansion I zipped blue dresses, admired vibrant coral flowers, spied on guests, choked down two strawberries and paced. After what seemed an eternity I was finally squeezed and sewn into my own dress, bejeweled, perfumed and rushed down the stairs for bridal portraits on the lawn. Too late! Guests clustered around the stairs and everywhere I turned. Panicked at being spotted before I walked down the aisle, I raced back up the stairs and we clicked off some portraits in record time and in all kinds of unique places like the bathroom and an old armchair. Props to my all-time favorite photographer, Kristen Leigh, who is a master of genius in unexpected, time-crunched scenarios! (Check out her own love story - a romance that only God could have written.) Second-shooters Abby Leigh and Ellie Berry were equally phenomenal. I'm so impressed by teenage proteges.

While waiting to walk down the aisle I read a darling letter penned by my groom as he sweated anxiously in the room below me, and caught a few glimpses of him in the garden while the guys had their portraits done. My heart threatened to fly right out of my chest. I was really and truly marrying the handsomest man this side of heaven.

Finally it was time. I lined up behind my ten best girls and descended three sets of stairs. At the bottom I made eye contact with my dad, and the look on his face was priceless. I spent my last moments as a single gal giggling with my sisters and whispering with Dad. Pachelbel's Canon echoed over the loudspeakers and my beautiful, beautiful bridesmaids floated down the aisle. My hand tightened on Dad's arm. A moment of silence...and the words of Jon McLaughlin's "So Close" reverberated into the stillness. "Now you're beside me/ And look how far we've come/ So far, we are so close." The instrumental interlude soared, we rounded the corner and suddenly I was taking the walk I'd always dreamed of towards the man I loved more than anything in the world.

The song was one of Nathan's favorites, and I'd stalwartly kept my choice a secret from him. My goal was to make this strong and steady young man weep as I appeared in all my bridal beauty and waltzed down the aisle to become his. Nate beamed uncontrollably and did not shed a tear, but four years of pent-up emotions and longings overwhelmed me. He hugged my dad and took my hand with that special smile reserved just for me. My welling tears overflowed and I ruined my makeup sobbing all the way through "How Great Thou Art." I managed to compose myself long enough to say my vows, ring his finger and share the world's longest kiss - then after we'd marched triumphantly up the aisle I collapsed again in a sea of relieved tears.

I remember thinking, "We're officially man and wife and that's all that matters - let's get out of here!" But there were still guests to be greeted, pictures to be taken and dances to be danced. The next few hours were a blur of portraits, wedding party antics, summer evening newlywed bliss as the shutters clicked unnoticed, a humming smoothie bar, scrumptious dinner buffet, greeting dear friends from near and far, hugging and laughing and countless kisses to the din of ringing dinner glasses. I have never had so much fun. All too soon it was time to dance: with my dad, with my beloved and he with his mom. Our men and maids of honor gave toasts, and we presented our dads with a surprise cake in honor of Father's Day.

Speaking of cake - my aunt concocted a literal confectionary wonder, the likes of which I've never seen. I'd warned Nathan about not getting me dirty, but when we cut the cake he saw the evil glint in my eye and automatically defended himself by shoving a fistful of cake up my nose. Some things never change.

I threw my flowers, he flung my garter and we danced briefly and ferociously with our guests before rushing upstairs to change. I had a short bout of hysteria when I realized that I was now a married woman and would never again cuddle up alone in my bright green bedroom or stay up too late whispering with my sister. She consoled me, fastened my going-away dress, grabbed my luggage and we took one last picture together. I met Nathan at the bottom of the stairs and we grinned at each other, giddy with excitement about the future that we would finally face together. We ran through a sea of bubbles blown by raucous guests, hopped into his Camry and drove away into the night.

The next few weeks were a flurry of honeymooning in Cancun, opening wedding gifts, packing up all our earthly belongings, saying goodbye to everyone I'd grown up with and road tripping to a new life in Texas where we had no one but each other. We laughed a lot, loved more and fought seldom. After years apart, spending every minute with my beloved was paradise. We never have to say goodbye again - and that is the profoundest relief I've ever known.

Nathan, the past two years with you have far surpassed my loftiest expectations. I see you day in and day out, and I more than anyone can say that your character is genuine to the core. Your love and honor for me never fluctuates with my moods and sinfulness. Every day you treat me as your bride, your treasure, in ways that I do not deserve. You sacrifice for me without complaint. You cheerfully put up with the messes I make in the kitchen, my temperamental cat and my everlasting showers. You, more than anyone I know, define love to me: patient, kind, not jealous or rude, nor irritable or resentful, not arrogant or self-seeking. Bearing, believing and enduring all things. Never ending. In spite of your many talents and a demanding work schedule, you esteem me and never cause me to question where I fall in your priorities. You are a man who lays down his life for his wife as Christ did for the church. Having lived and learned with you these past two years, I can honestly say that I have fallen increasingly deeper in love with you every day since our wedding. You have stolen my heart, forever and always. I love you - the most!

This is my beloved, and this is my friend. 

- Song of Songs 5:16