Dear Paul Stehlik,

It’s a pretty amazing thing to have spent ten years with someone you love dearly and who loves you dearly back. And since it was ten years ago today that we said we do, I was reflecting on the way our vows have played out over the last decade:

*For better or worse… There’s been so much better it hardly seems fair: Your gift of humor. My gift of laughing at your humor. So many deep, meaningful conversations. So many shared adventures and passions. Learning to be a mom and dad to three little boys who invent things like “fist jousting” and superhero personas for everyone in our family. How could I not love being “Dr. Angelfire?” But there’s been worse to work through too: Your tendency to invalidate and my tendency to withdraw and avoid. Many times butting heads over who was right- about things that were important and things that didn’t matter at all. Wounds inflicted by the selfish choices of two stubborn people. But there is something uniquely beautiful that comes only when you have battled through the inevitable storms of a fallen world together and learned the difficult work of laying down your arms and laying down your rights. And when you come out the other side happy to be laying your heads on each other’s shoulders, you know it is not cheap friendship… it is costly. It is a treasure so expensive that you are paying for it with your lives. As true love always is.

*In sickness and in health… We got a whiff of this when I threw up for the first time with Noah’s pregnancy. And then all day long every day for the next several months and subsequent pregnancies. Remember how many times you held my hair back… and my whole self back when it got really violent? Remember that time in Orange County after On the Border when I was about eight months? HO-ly moly. It’s a miracle either one of us ever touched Mexican food after that episode. Remember how I felt too sick to ever do anything for months and that time when I looked at the particular socks on my feet and realized that I had put them on almost A WEEK before… and then we did the math on how long it had been since I’d had a shower? Thanks for not ratting me out to the World Health Organization. And thanks also for that time you went out at bedtime to get me limited run shrimp quesadillas from Taco Cabana because they looked so yummy on that daggum commercial.

*For richer or poorer… I realize we may be bucking tradition as a couple who feel more threatened by the first of these two scenarios than by the second. We have had times when you were making more than enough to cover a comfortable lifestyle. And we’ve had times when we didn’t know where the money would come from to cover the next month’s lean lifestyle. I love this because in tasting both, we have learned that the sweet journey of dependence on Him tastes better than the security of a paycheck. Thanks for being willing to let the Lord turn our perspective on lifestyle upside down and for believing that Matthew 6 is enough. Let’s never go back.

It has been a gift to learn with you and live life with you. Our journey together has been nothing short of overwhelmingly rewarding. And at the risk of sounding terribly unsentimental, I maintain that 1 Corinthians 7:29-35 has been the secret ingredient that has made it so rich. “… the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as those who had none… for this world in its present form is passing away… I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.” It’s a verse not often read at weddings. It does not have the poetry of a Song of Solomon 8, or the classic beauty of a 1 Corinthians 13, or a theology of love like a 1 John 4. It is horribly unromantic, but it has saved us from ourselves. It has given us a higher vision than our own happiness. It has given us a worthier calling than our own dreams. But in taking our eyes off ourselves and pouring our lives out for Christ, He has more than deepened our friendship. He has more than guarded our love. He has more than met our needs and satisfied our desires. And somehow in the end we are the closer and more knit together for it.

Thank you for love that has been selfless and constant but also for not making me the center of your world. I rejoice in your Anchor who holds a lot steadier than I ever could. Thank you for friendship that has been a rich source of joy and a deep well of trust but also thank you for not letting us waste our lives away in the insatiable pursuit of our own enjoyment. I delight in being your co-laborer in Christ, in sharing your mission, and in “losing our lives” together. And a whole lot of other things you don’t normally read on anniversary cards. Ten years with you has blessed me beyond words.