18,629 Days and Counting- A Letter to My Parents

He mentioned it again today.
Let me explain.

I decided, with a heart full of passion and drive, that I was destined, CREATED, God-breathed into being for the purpose of being a writer.
I decided this when I was 9 years old, and the first person I told was my father.

Boy was he proud.

He reminds me still, and I’m 40.  The man never, ever stops believing in his children and their potential.

That year I created a lovely anniversary card for him and my mother, with all of the wit my 4th-ish grade, homeschooled passion could muster.
It read:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
It’s your anniversary,
AND MOMMY’S, TOO!

He reminded me of it again today. Quoted my exquisite logic back to me word for word and told me how he and his friends had chuckled over its brilliance at church this morning. I mean, you can’t question the logic of it, after all.

It’s easy for me to roll my eyes and groan, but listen, people…

He. Is. Still. Proud.

On the flip side, I am now 40 years old. I have had about a million and one false starts at this writing dream and I have decided that I’ve had enough of NOT being a writer.  It’s time.

In honor of the parents who believe in me still, now a mother and wife myself,  I offer my first stepping back out there, in THEIR HONOR, today.

It’s a bit longer, and many years later, but here I am at another one of my parents’ anniversaries, inspired by them.

FIFTY-ONE YEARS
18,629 days and counting.

Every year that goes by for my parents is an amazing and powerful inspiration, not because they “made it another year,” but because I witness the continued and consistent growing together of their souls and hearts.

It doesn’t stop, y’all.
God is in their details.

It’s not that they’ve ticked off another notch in their epic time span, it’s that this year was unlike any of the fifty that they have walked through before. It was completely different, with new experiences. The struggles were hard, the pains were deep and the joys immeasurably unpredictable.
As I watch them pass through life together, it’s not the time span that is inspiring. Buried beneath that number is an unshakeable drive and determination of TOGETHER, wholly submitted to a God who knows their deepest, individually and as a team.
It’s the fact that there is so much that is still new and they are STILL learning and changing together, every single day.

18,629 individual days, unlike the others before or after, of saying yes to each other and believing in God’s design of marriage.

That’s not boring.
10 kids
30+ grandkids
The reach of your investment into this union has changed the world. Just by doing your days submitted to God’s intention for together.
.

Marriage is not just coasting through life. it’s grabbing hold of each other, taking a deep breath and saying TOGETHER is the only way through. Period.

HAPPY FIFTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY!!!!!

Thank you for showing us how to keep putting one foot in front of the other while still holding each other close.

Here’s to your FIRST DAY of year FIFTY-TWO,
and a prayer that you may have many 1,000s of days still ahead of together-ing.

WE LOVE YOU. <3

My parents are so immensely proud of their family.

COMMENT BELOW to congratulation Richard and Lucienne Fowler on their FIRST DAY OF YEAR 52!!!!

SHARE if you believe that every day of marriage is valuable and makes you stronger!!!