I went on a series of really bad dates the summer before I met you and was pretty cynical about dating/you/all of it. One character smoked a lot of weed and “forgot" we had plans, one ended up being Buddhist and tried to balance my “energy” with a bracelet, another was cheap and just drove around playing KLOVE and then wanted to make out: Bad Dates. And then came you…it was so simple; you walked right up to me and asked if I wanted to leave the dumb party we were at, met me at church the next morning, asked if you could take me on a date that night, took me on the best date of my life, and two weeks later I wrote the words “I think I’m falling in love” in my journal. Everything before you felt forced or uneven.
We are so different, you and I, and yet so much the same: Two first borns (I’m stubborn and you’re bossy), I'm always concerned about "doing the right thing” and you live life more like a honey badger, you crave adventure and I crave safety, I like people but you LOVE people, you’re driven by passion and I’m driven by peace. You have taught me a lot about caring less about who I’m “supposed” to be and more about who Christ has created me to be, all these layers…
It's almost been 12 years since that party. I remember the smell of fall, the drive to your college townhouse, “The Starting Line” CD, your generosity and instant loyalty, feeling so safe.
You are my wild soul. You are motivated by fun and that usually makes you my favorite person but sometimes distracts you from really being present and I’m motivated by comfort and that mostly makes me your favorite person but is sometimes boring and can make me lethargic. We aren’t perfect but we are so in love.
Gungor just came out with a CD “One Wild Life: Soul” and there’s a song called “Lion of Rock” and the lyrics made me think of life here with you:
“I love you oh gentlest of ways
Who ripens us as we wrestle with you
The great homesickness we cannot shake
Every breath is give and take
There is no giving without any taking
There’s no love without any loss”
We sit here, a month away from meeting the baby we’ve been dreaming about for 22 months and in the throws of raising a wild 3 year old soul. I think your dad said it best when he said our son is “Jeremy with Tara’s gentleness”: Beck will run away from me at the store and I’ll find him in an aisle telling a stranger they are beautiful. I want to simultaneously hug him and spank him most of the time and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I don’t know what this life is going to bring us and I don’t trust this world enough to think it’s always going to be easy; it hasn’t always been easy. My hope and prayer is that we continue to pursue each other and realize that, as Gungor says, we are being ripened as we wrestle with God and that the great homesickness we feel is a pull towards something greater.
As we enter into this phase of another newborn (which if we are being honest, isn’t our strongest suit) I want to challenge us to be good stewards of what we’ve been given because “every breath is give and take” and God is molding us into better versions of ourselves through each other and these wild little souls we have been entrusted with.
And for the record, even on our worst days, I’m so glad it was you.
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