Our 7th Anniversary

Monday, January 5, was our 7th anniversary. We got a babysitter (actually, 2 babysitters) and spent the day at the Ritz Carlton Spa. It was the day before Donny started back with classes, and it was just what I needed to start the new semester.

Seven years...7 seems like a small number. In my dream of spending 60+ years with Donny, 7 is but a fraction of the time I long to spend on this earth as his wife. BUT...what, really, have I ever done for 7 years? I guess elementary school was the last thing I did for 7 years. I have been driving for more than 7 years. I have been on my own, out of school for more than 7 years.

Still...seven years...a lot happens in a marriage in seven years. In seven years we have lived in 3 states, 4 cities and 5 different homes. We have had two children. It was on our 2nd anniversary in 2004 that we found our we were pregnant with Hunter. Donny calls that day the day I waved the stick I had just peed on in his face. We have had three different jobs in seven years. There have been many highs and a share of lows.

Snapshots of our seven years:

• Beginning our marriage with living room furniture consisting of a coffee table, a bean bag, and two picnic chairs
• Having a hard time with the name change (Friederichsen is a toughy...I still sign my receipts with Kim F with a long line after the F)
• Working on our wedding scrapbook soon after we were married while Donny watched this new show..."24." Although I was not interested in it AT ALL at the time, I type this now anxiously awaiting the start of season 7 tomorrow night trying to figure out if I will have to pull Hunter out of children's choir early to make it home in time.
  
• Lots of trips to Dairy Queen for chocolate peanut butter blizzards in our first year. I think we are still paying for that little routine.
• Moving to Lexington...and having the ice storm of 2003 within our first month there.
• Donny's surgery on his polynidal cyst in June 2003 - A time in our marriage when I had to repeat "For better or for worse" over and over to remember the vows I had made as I dressed his wound.
• At 3:00 a.m., Donny jumped in front of me (7 months pregnant with Hunter) as we heard a LOUD crash outside of our house. A drunk driver had just run into BOTH of our cars while we were fast asleep in our house. Donny has always been a strong and faithful protector.
  
• Helping Donny learn how to change his first diaper (Hunter's...not his) in the hospital.
• Donny sweetly coached me on Hunter's first night home to wait just a little longer to see if Hunter would fall asleep on his own...and he did...and I have been so thankful ever since. I think our kids sleep better because of Donny and his wisdom on that very first night.

OK...I've written for much longer than I thought I would...and I only got three years into our marriage. Oh well, you get the point. I love my husband...and I love that God provided him for me. That was part of our vows...the only part we added to the traditional vows (thanks, Emily and Forrest). "I, Kim, receive you, Donny, as God's provision for me."

Life is always interesting. Here we are, seven years in, and we are in school still trying, in a way, to "find ourselves." What fills my heart, though, is knowing that I and my husband find ourselves today "in Christ," and in his will and loving him and his Word. I am thrilled by the thought of many more years ahead...that, looking back 50 years from now, 7 will seem like a drop in the bucket...but a significant drop nonetheless.

Donny, I love you.

Lord, I thank you for my sweet husband, your provision for me.