::8 Years::

I will always adore these roses. Our wedding roses. Eight years ago.

::Seven Years::

{Visual Forces}

Aidan and I have been married seven years, as of yesterday. It really is a beautiful number. I wonder if I have adopted a love for it because God seems to hold it in such high regard in the scriptures? I don't know. But we have danced our way through these precious days. There have been so few hardships and so many blessings placed at our feet. A glorious beginning to our lives together.

I have heard that those early years are usually the hard ones, as a couple settles into one another. Really? I can't help but view these as the easy years. Or, rather, the lightness-of-heart years. Young children bursting with newness and need for us. Fresh beginnings and a forgiving places to land our mistakes and re-try, re-learn, push forward. Youth. Energy. Eagerness to get up and go. Grabbing the world and shaking out it's treasures.

I look ahead, and refuse to put on those rose-coloured glasses. There are darker times to come. There will be grown children, pushing against their parameters. Why don't they need me anymore? There will be loss and hurt, as people depart or break away. There will be restlessness and unreasonable desires and discontent. There will be a battle between us and our bodies. Beauty fading; aches surfacing. God will teach us things we don't want to learn, and it will hurt.

But today is our day of blessing.

You have placed me in green pastures.
You lead me beside quiet waters.

And David has more words.
Words for those later, harder years aswell. Words that remind us that even our dark days are flooded with the light of hope:

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Amen.

Six Years

Six years. Married at 20 and 24. Parents within that same year. And we haven't slowed down since. Now, a fourth baby on the way. A new home, carefully and lovingly built. All along the way; countless little celebrations and daily demonstrations of love, support and commitment. . . This life of ours has nurtured such hope for the future. Six years of such sweetness leaves us eager to see what is just down the path.

As we have done most January 19th's, we are heading down to Montreal this weekend to eat, and walk holding hands and generally bask in a few short days without responsibilities. Dear friends is bravely taking on all three kids while we are gone.

Je vous rejoindrez en deux jours. A lundi!

Five years

Aidan and I have been married for five years now. Five years. It is incredible how much living happens in five years. "With ease," I keep saying. But I am well aware that the "ease" of which I speak is, in fact, God's hand of blessing upon us. He has granted us five years of calm seas. No trials or tribulations, only blessing. And, like a squirrel, I have been mentally storing up the memories of God's graciousness throughout these years so that I might reflect upon them, and draw from them, when harder times come upon us. It is a certainty they will.

How do two people celebrate five years of marriage? A funny concept, really, since every day marks new reasons to rejoice. The occasion, however, does offer us an excuse to do something we rarely can afford to do. Dinner out? No. Night at a hotel? No. We are going to launch ourselves down the biggest ski hill around: Tremblant. Neither of us have spent much time skiing, but we are passably able. One of my goals this winter is to learn how to get down a bunny hill on a snowboard. I have a narrow window of opportunity before another baby comes along. That will have to happen closer to home though. Tremblant is intimidating to begin with, let alone hurtling down it with both feet strapped to a board.

So, here's to five years. Think of us. Pray we arrive home exhilarated and un-concussed.