He wants me to tell you that he isn’t perfect. He does. I’m not just saying that because I can and it’s my blog.
Maybe he isn’t perfect, but he’s the guy who gets up to answer a nightmare-cry from our three-year-old at midnight. He checks on her when I don’t ask. He walks from her room to the one next door to cover up our older daughter, kiss her cheek and pull up her quilt over her shoulders.
He might have ADD, but he remembers to bring back coffee for me when he visits Starbucks without me on Sunday mornings. He knows what I get and sweeps in the door with a skinny vanilla latte in one hand and his keys and wallet in the other. He puts them all down on the counter and tells me good-morning in the middle of me making a weekend breakfast for the girls. He’s left us to sleep in a little. But now we’re up, pajamas still warm from bed, and he hugs the three of us in one motion.
Sometimes I tell him he can forgive me for the hugest of transgressions but not the tiniest. I’m really sorry I leave the AC on when I leave the house. And I’m sorry I forgot to close the upstairs window in the 100 degree heat. I know it faces the hot side of the house (actually every side is the hot side right now).
He really isn’t perfect, but he’s walked with me in the big things:
The lawsuit that almost destroyed us but didn’t.
The births of babies, the nights with newborns who wake the neighbors, the afternoons spent waiting for naptime to come.
The death of one marriage and the rebirth of the same marriage with new energy, new love and new eyes.
And he works a lot. Not because he wants to but because he has to. The difference between him and some men is that he actually wants to come home at the end of the day. I don’t take that for granted. I am blessed because, even when he does come home and explodes his gear and papers all over my clean table, he is home. And he loves being here. Even in the chaos and the kids with grimy hands and faces, with unfolded laundry and an occasional three-year-old tantrum during dinner. He still wants to be here.
He isn’t perfect. Not at all.
Even then he wasn’t.
[But then neither was I. I never have been.]
But he loves us. And he belongs to us.
He’s as perfect as he needs to be.
He’s writing today about confession and changed lives over on his blog. Go visit him and tell him “hi” for me, and then tell him HAPPY BIRTHDAY because he’s 35 today.
[You can also follow him on twitter and you can follow me on twitter too if you haven't already.]
Good morning Sarah!
You and Chad are very awesome! My husband, like yours, is one who wants to come home and I appreciate it. But, I do not tell him. I need to. I have to.
Thank you, again, Sarah.
smooches,
Larie
You my dear are the bomb. This is the best bday present. I love you so truly and madly.
What a sweet smile that man has. Yay for you and your girls who get to see and experience it. Thank you for sharing! Happy Birthday Chad; I hope it is the best year yet.
Oh, I love this Chad Markley fellow and haven’t even met him…YET.
Happy birthday, my dear friend.
What a beautiful post – I love it! seriously
Beautifully written Sarah. A wonderful love letter to your wonderful husband. Although I have not met either of you in person, I can hear the love you have for him. Yours is a marriage that has seen and survived what 1/2 of marriages today cannot. I thank you for sharing your life with us. As an unmarried woman, it gives me hope for the marriage I will have someday.
you’re right…chad is not perfect…
but he’s perfect for you..for your girls…for us who love you all!
all my love,
dad
Thank you for sharing Sarah. So sweet and tender. You are both so lucky and blessed to have each other. What a great example you are setting for your girls.God bless you guys.
Once again, Sarah, you’ve written something so near and dear to my heart! I feel the same way about my husband! I am so lucky to have him in my life, he is my rock, my human rock. I believe that God perfectly matched us together and no one or nothing can tear us apart.
He is such a wonderful man, though not perfect, and an amazing father…even though all the odds were against him. He came from a very broken family. His father physically abused him, his mother and his sister, for years. Even after his mother left his father he had a very rough upbringing…his mother had to work 2 to 3 jobs at a time just to survive (she’s such an amazing woman and I love her dearly). He had to raise himself along with his little sister. They grew up in a very rough, poverty stricken part of town and had to see and experience things as a child that no child should have to experience. He was also exposed to drugs, alcohol, gang shootings and murders by the time he was 11. It had quite an impact on him…he got beat up, stolen from, and raped of a normal childhood altogether. By the time he was a teenager, he was very bitter and in full survival mode. Finally when his mother had saved up enough money to move out of that part of town and into a home, the moved.
He didn’t know what it was like to live a “normal” type of life. He had so many inner struggles…why would any father just up and leave his children? He understood divorcing your spouse, but not your children. The last time he had seen his father, he was 10, and had never seen or heard from him since. What was all this anger festered up in him and would he ever get rid of it? This carried on up into his mid to late twenties.
When we met, we became wonderful friends…always together until we finally figured out that we had so much more than just friendship, and we started actually dating. I had a daughter from my previous marriage that I introduced to him after quite a few months and he was so good with and to her. But something was still missing for him. I remember, one evening, we had gotten into a horrible fight and it got physical between us. He terrified me! I broke up with him that night. I didn’t talk to him for about five months, but I missed him so badly…I didn’t know how to fill the void of loosing my best friend. Then one day, I decided to give him a call. He told me over the phone that he had been thinking about me but was too ashamed to call me. He apologized to me and asked me to forvige him…that was new!! Forgive? Wow, that was pretty profound. He told me that he had been attending church again, he hadn’t done this in years, and asked God to help strip him of these horrible habbits. I could seriously hear the change in him.
He told me that day, either he was going to become a statistic and fall right into that category of this type of upbringing, or with God, rise above it all! And HE DID!!! Praise God! His heart was forever changed!! I am not saying that he does not get angry, because he does, but it has never, ever, once gone back to that night…that was his ROCK BOTTOM!!
When he first told me about his father, I asked him what he would do if he ever saw him again…at 26 years of age he said…”I would probably walk up to him and beat him within an inch of his life”. At 30, the conversation came up again and he said…”I would probably walk up to him, shake his hand, and say Thank you. Thank you for leaving so that I could become the man God intended me to be.” Now…he is at complete peace with his life, what it was and what it is now and has truly forgiven his father. It’s truly amazing how God heals hearts and makes ENORMOUS changes in people! He is full of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and continues to be to this day! And today, his little family, step-daughter included, is his ENTIRE world and he holds us so closely, so dearly and so wonderfully!
So your are so right, he is not PERFECT…but who is other than our dear Father! Thank you Sarah, I just wanted to share this with you about my sweet hubby. I thank God for him every day! Have a wonderful week!!
Gina
Wow, what an amazing story about your husband! God is SO good to bring about such incredible miracles!
Wow! This is so amazing. Thank you so much for sharing this story.
A very loving Birthday present!!
…nah, he ain’t perfect, if he were, he would be extremely boring: and boring at a 6 AM men’s study just doesn’t cut the (Birthday) cake!
Hey Franko!!
Ya, I guess Tuesday mornings wouldn’t be much fun without my own special brand of “spicy bible study”.
What a beautiful tribute to your husband on his birthday!
SO sweet, Sarah. He may not be perfect but he is seriously FUNNY! Love that guy’s sense of humor!
YES!! he is so funny. my favorite thing about him!
I love to hear a wife lift up her husband by telling everyone how great she thinks he is. It lifts my spirits. I love telling people how much my hubby means to me, too.
What a beautiful birthday gift to your husband! It is such a blessing to have a wonderful man to walk beside us on our journey! I am grateful for mine too!!
I love seeing this open and honest love for each other…you guys are such a fabulous example of how marriage was designed to be. Thank you for being yourselves, perfect or not.
And happy birthday Chad!
i have lost sight of this recently and its a good reminder for me to get back on track!
Feeling a little kindred spirit with you today and wanted to thank you for sharing your gift of writing and honoring your husband with us today. Wishing him a very Happy Birthday too.
What a wonderful way to show your love! And a great reminder to look at my own dear husband – so caught up in pain and hurt right now – and see all the good that is in him.
God answered a small prayer for me yesterday with regards to my husband and I and our journey towards a restored marriage.
Thank God for answered prayers.
Thank you God for giving me this man.
We have a long road ahead of us – but i would rather walk this hard road with my husband, than walk any other road.
Continue to pray that my husband finds God and learns to lean on him when times get hard.
My husband – remembers that I like score chocolate bars and brings them home. He will put two towels in the bathroom in the morning for me, before i get out of bed. He once pulled over to assist an elderly women whose wheel chair was stuck in a hole in the sidewalk…after telling the “man” who walked around her exactly what a real man would do. My husband, hides on top of the elevator to jump down and scare his little boys – he wrestles with them, and will put on batmans cap and mask (made for a 5 year old so it looks ridiculous) and run around the yard with his boys. He always pushes them just enough to try new things – but always there to help them back up if they fall (he understands sometims the bruised bumm they get when they fall can teach them as much as the attempt)…
My husband is a good man and I love him.
i love your perspective. thank you.
how blessed you are, sarah!!!
chad, you are the best brother-in-law ever! loves and happy birthday!
bear
Sarah, this is beautiful! I love when the dad loves on the kidos! That is truley a precious moment!
this was beautiful.
i love your tender heart for your husband….
My husband died when I was 31. I am still his “wife”…but it doesn’t define me. In fact, I had to redefine every aspect of my life in the new light of single parenthood and widowhood. What kind of mother would I be now? What kind of friend, etc.
I think that life is full of redefining ourselves. We are God’s children, always. But life changes. Our role as mother changes as they grow. Our interests and hobbies change. What would not please us one year, is very pleasing a few years down the road.
When you asked, “if my husband dies, will I still be his wife?”…the answer is YES!