Anniversay!

This week we celebrated four years of marriage. We have spent 204 weeks together as husband and wife. 204 saturday mornings, many of which were not lie ins. I estimate that we have had at least 204 arguments. 

We've had 48 pay days, many spent trusting God for the miraculous in our finance. He has never, ever not come through. 

18 months of pregnancy. 24 months of breastfeeding. 14 weeks recovering from caesarean sections. Two children's first breaths, steps and words. One first day of school. 

We have had three home addresses. 

Less than a dozen date nights. 

We have spent a total of 21 weeks of our married life on different continents to each other. 

We have hosted people in our home 34 times, that excludes friends visiting us on vacation. 

I have spent more than 500 hours shopping for food, and more than 3000 hours preparing it. We have cooked many meals and washed lots of dishes. We have also done LOTS of laundry.

I've driven just under 10 000 miles on british roads, yet never taken our car further than three hours away from home. 

Looking at it like that our four years seem mundane. Full to the brim with ordinary. And in many ways it has been - most of life is ordinary. Full of chores, work, struggles and challenges, but, with each challenge, we have over come. In each battle we have found victory and there in lies the reason our life has felt extraordinary. So full of joy and adventure. 

We're  only 10% of the way to our 40 year anniversary, when I may feel old and wise enough to give you advise on marriage. For now I have just this to share: Looking at these photos I'm reminded of how we've made it though 204 weeks of the mundane. While the moments of inconceivable joy have played their part in sustaining us through the ordinary, the real reason we still wake up in the same bed is what happened on the 7th of April 2007. 

We made a choice. To love, to honour, to cherish, to trust, to be a leader, to be lead. And every morning when we wake up, we make that choice all over again. We honour each other as belonging to Christ. We honour our promise that we made before Him. And sometimes we don't. But then we ask for forgiveness and then we make that choice again. We work through the tough times. We dance in the kitchen in the middle of washing up dinner dishes. We bless each other with our "mundane" choices. He picks up his socks. I buy our food. And somehow, in all of that, He pours out more and more love and we fall deeper and deeper into it. 

I never imagined it could get sweeter yet, each year that passes, it does. Thank you Lord for your blessing over us. We love you.