Lob-star

Besides refusing to call Hans my "boyfriend" when we were dating, he had to put up with a lot more when we were preparing for our wedding.

I didn't want a diamond unless it resembled the sunset and sunrise.
I refused to call the period of time married couple spent after the wedding our "honeymoon."
So I called it our LobSTAR, because we ate a lot of lobsters that week (we were in Maine), and I like stars.

We've had four fabulous years, or what will be four fabulous years on May 27. Some days, it feels as though we said our vows yesterday. Other days, it feels as though we've always been married from the beginning of time.

When I try very, very hard, I catch glimmers of my pre-marriage self. These are usually followed by questions along the lines of: "Why did you marry me? I was so..." These are then followed by: "Thank you so much for marrying me! I can't believe you married me."

As we've been discussing possible names for our second little boy, I am once again reminded of why he is such a wonderful a companion when faced with a seemingly impossible task. The air is charged with the same sort of laughter and thoughtfulness four years ago as we stayed up late into the night planning our wedding.

We had decided that he would write my wedding vow, and I would write his.

In our rough drafts, I had wanted him to promise that he would follow Christ unto death. Because if I were to follow him all the days of my life, I needed assurance that he would follow Christ... unto death. He gently (and wisely) suggested that this might not be the best thing to declare in front of hundreds of people on our wedding day.

See what I mean? How did he choose to marry me?

So, we changed it. He promised he would "follow where He should lead us, seeking after the fulfillment of our sure hope of the perfection of our faith."

With a companion like this one, I really shouldn't worry about not being able to come up with a name for our second child.

As I declared four years ago,

"I take you to be mine, and I give myself to you."