Happy Birthday to My Best Friend

photo taken in NC, October 2012

 Today is my husband's birthday.

If he begins the day as he usually does, he will raise five children from the depths of slumber before heading to the shower. Over the next hour or so he will head out into the early morning darkness to pull cars into position for the school drive (thus avoiding a bottle neck at rush hour.) He will tie shoes, comb the boys' hair, and supervise the final details of packing school bags while I cover breakfast and lunch, school clothes and girls' hair. Then he will head out the door to deliver four children to school, returning to walk the fifth child to school shortly thereafter.

He will then make coffee and share it with me. If we have kept to our schedule, he will be able to take some time to sit beside me and read a devotional from God's Word and to pray together. Some mornings we will leave together, perhaps to minister jointly in marriage counseling or simply to study side by side. Other mornings he goes his way and I go mine, but when midday rolls around (if not before) we are in touch once again to coordinate school pick up, after-school activities, family mealtime, and/or whatever the given day might hold.

For a couple of hours in the afternoon/early evening, he is all ours. He helps with homework, settles disputes, and offers his help in the kitchen. We rub shoulders as we parent side by side. This is a tremendous blessing to me.

Many of his evenings are spent away - in meetings, visitation, counseling or teaching - but at some point we try to catch up on one another's interactions and the day's events and we update one another on the mundane of e-mail and the more weighty matters of people's needs and in this way we serve, together.

I am thankful for "together."

I am thankful for the privilege of having a front-row seat to observing my husband's spiritual growth and increasing maturity in leadership. I am thankful that when I am flustered and prone to panic, he is calm and wise. I am thankful that when the responsibilities have piled on and I am tempted to be overwhelmed, he does not lose sight of the big picture.

I am thankful for him.

And today, on his birthday, I want him to know that. Happy Birthday, Pedro Garcia III. Happy Birthday to my husband - and to my best friend. I love you!