"A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job." (Robert Capon, The Supper of the Lamb)

Today is our twentieth wedding anniversary! Praise the Lord, and amen!

I love my wife, though I have not always been good at knowing what love is or what love does. By grace, she has been patient and I am on the learning/loving path.

From the beginning I knew that she would not be satisfied with the status quo in our Christian walks, in our relationship at spouses, in our work as parents, or in our service to Christ’s Body; her high expectations were part of what attracted me to her. In order to be helpfully provocative (rather than a nag, or as the boss) she had to be a committed disciple of Jesus, a lover of the Bible and theology, and a student of people. She has been that since I met her, and has only matured more than I could have imagined in all of those things over the last two decades.

There is no one that I’ve sinned against more than her, and there is no one that has shown me what forgiveness looks like in the flesh as much as her.

She is a model of endurance through chronic and sometimes debilitating pain.

She cares about our kids, seeing them for who they are and encouraging each one in their particular interested and giftedness.

She is the financial nerd (in Dave Ramsey terminology), but how necessary that has been to keep us from never-ending debt of the free-spender.

She loves loud music, the kind that shakes the outer panels of our minivan and causes the back seat to bounce with the subwoofer underneath.

She consumes and processes more conversations in a month (personal and via podcasts) than I can imagine doing ever.

She is always curious, always learning, quick to say she was wrong, laughing (the good ways) the whole time.

She respects me far more than I deserve, to my face, to our kids, and to others in our church.

And I still love to watch her gait, even though it’s changed a lot under the burdens of pain and responsibilities.

I love you, Mo! Happy anniversary!

[caption id=“attachment_8889” align=“aligncenter” width=“768”] This isn’t a wedding photo, but it’s at least closer to when we tied the knot![/caption]