I am so amazingly in love with you –  and my love for you grows stronger with every day that I spend my life with you.  I begin each new day wondering what you have in store for both of us – what adventure will we complete this day, what challenge will we have to overcome that we can only overcome together. Yes, I even look forward to those things from my past that you bring up and force me to deal with – I know that working through those things only deepens the adventure, and beaks down any remaining parts of the wall that prevent me from fully knowing and experiencing you.

It wasn’t always like that, you and I…  No, sadly you know all too well that I was distant, withdrawn, checked out – serving only my deep need for a Father, in my own feeble ways. In truth, I knew you best by your surface traits, and I managed my life and interaction with you to appease those traits – fearful of venturing off of the beaten path into the thicker underbrush of our relationship. In fact, I lived in fear of you – or maybe more aptly put, in fear of your disappointment with me. Little did I know that your want from me was so much more simple, basic, and truly without complication. How my image of your heart was so distorted.

You have loved me for so many years, while by my own lack of understanding of you and your wants of me, I repeatedly hurt you in ways I’ve only come to recently realize. Yet you stood by – sometimes close to offer your comfort – sometimes at a distance to allow me to deal with my loneliness, yet all along your needs of me have been simple. There are still remnants of the old window through which I used to see you, and the edges of the glass can be a bit sharp – but you are helping me to clear those pieces away one by one, and in your unending love, you are even tending to the injuries that I have sustained in the process, and helping them to heal.

It’s so much fun to be on the same page with you at the core. Sure, there are times when I drift, but you always welcome me back into your fellowship. I remember the old days – through the old window – how I worked so hard to satisfy what I thought were your wants of me, only to have the relationship be peaceful, yet sensitive and fragile – which created yet more fear and misunderstanding in my heart. But now to be truly walking the same path with you – there’s little in this world that I now want more of than this, and there’s no task that Father has for us that we cannot undertake together.

Oh, but there is so much more. Lately, I have been captivated by your affect on others as I watch you work in their lives . I know it’s not work for you, it’s just who you are at the core – who Father made you to be, but the effects are far reaching and everlasting on those around you – to simply know the touch of the Father’s love – that incredible, unexplainable, “you have to experience it” kind of touch. I watch in awe as you work.

There’s so much more that I could say about you to the world – you are truly needed in my life like I could never have imagined. You are essential to me in ways I did not know existed. And you are irreplaceable – the priceless gift that I will guard with all of my mite.

While the words I write here could (and are) words that I am writing to Jesus my savior, today these words are directed to Kimberly Cole – my beautiful, captivating bride of nearly 20 years. Today it’s your birthday – and my prayer for you is that it would be a day in which you simply bask in the Father’s love, see his work in your life – and be pleased and content.

I love you… more than I ever knew I had the capacity for. Father bring on the adventure – your team is ready here…

~Bry