Age of Opportunity – My Take Away

August 7, 2012 / Sara Vincent / 1 Comment

This summer I read Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens by Paul David Tripp. Tripp is the brother of Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child’s Heart, hands down the very best book I read for raising children during the little years, so I was hoping that this would be something similar for the teen years, and I was not disappointed. The author does an incredible job of reminding parents that this time is an opportunity, not a burden, that these challenges are gifts, not punishments. Below are just some of the things I took away from this incredible read…

In a section titled, “Struggles for Parents”, he writes:

These years are hard for us because they expose the wrong thoughts and desires of our own hearts….We don’t radically change in a moment of trial. No, trials expose what we have always been….So, too, the teen years expose our self-righteousness, our impatience, our unforgiving spirit, our lack of servant love, the weakness of our faith, and our craving for comfort and ease.

He also writes:

It is time for us to reject the wholesale cynicism of our culture regarding adolescence. Rather than years of undirected and unproductive struggle, these are years of unprecedented opportunity.

These are not years merely to be survived! They are to be approached with a sense of hope and a sense of mission. Almost every day brings a new opportunity to enter the life of your teen with help, hope,and truth. We should not resign ourselves to an increasingly distant relationship. This is the time to connect with our children as never before. These are years of great opportunity.

And this:

All must be seen as something more than hassles that get in the way of an otherwise enjoyable life. These are the moments God made parents for.

And that is all just Chapter 1.

In chapter 2, the author gets down to the business of dealing with idols – our idols as parents. The ones we didn’t even realize we had and that are greatly interfering with our ability to parent for God’s glory.

Our idols have caused us to see opportunity as trial and caused us to strike back at our teenagers with bitter words of judgement, accusation, and condemnation, behaving toward them with intolerance and anger. While God is calling us to love, accept, forgive, and serve, we are often barely able to be nice.

Life is war. There is a war out there; it is being fought ont he turf of your heart. It is being fought for the control of your soul

Parents who demand comfort, ease, regularity, peace, space, quiet, and harmony will be ill-equipped for this war. They will begin to see their teenager as the enemy. They will begin to fight with him rather than for him, and even worse, they will tend to forget the true nature of the battle and the identity of the real enemy. They will act out of frustrated desire, doing and saying regrettable things, and they will fail to be effective and productive in those strategic moments of ministry in which God has placed them.

We begin to look at our children as our trophies rather than God’s creatures. We secretly want to display them on the mantels of our lives as visible testimonies to a job well done.

It is so easy to lose sight of the fact that these are God’s children. They do not belong to us. They are given not to bring us glory, but Him….Our identity is rooted in Him and His call to us, not in our children and their performance.

Uh, wow. This chapter cut deeply.

Moving on…

Our Christianity often becomes fuzzier the closer it gets to real life, every day experience.

All of life blows into a chaotic mass of meaningless choices unless it is rooted in the one fact that makes every other fact make sense – GOD.

We must be faithful to turn their eyes from what they desire to what God requires.

Teenagers desperately need to see the larger story.

The family is called to be the context in which what it means to love your neighbor as yourself is self-consciously taught at every turn.

When selfishness, individualism, and demandingness create conflict, strife, and tension in our homes, we must thank God for the opportunity to deal with something that He has said is second in importance only to our relationship to Him. If we are truly thankful, we will not opt for quick, surface solutions, but we will work to uncover the issues of the heart that are the real reason for the conflict.

The family is the context where the teenager’s true heart toward relationships is consistently exposed….Situtaions must not be viewed as the groaning hassles of family life. These are the moments when God is calling us to something greater than our own comfort and ease. These are the times when God calls us to love our children with a second-great-command love, so that we are willing to take the time to do the second-great-command parenting that they so desperately need. At such moments, we need to be ruled not by the rule of personal desire, but by God’s rule of love.

This is all from the first four chapters of the book. Part two goes on to Godly goals and then part three gives practical strategies for parenting teens and both sections are heavily underlined in my copy. I was both challenged and encouraged by this book, even though we technically do not have any teens yet. As a parent who does greatly desire peace and space and general ease of life, I was convicted that my attitudes are wrong and that this time is an incredible opportunity to engage my children as young adults and to help steer them down the narrow path of life while the wide path calls with distractions and temptations. As we enter a new school year this has served as an inspiration to me to persevere through the hard days and to continue counting each day as a gift.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

When I want to run away…

August 6, 2012 / Sara Vincent / 1 Comment

As we wait for tomorrow to dawn and bring with it the beginning of a new school year, fears from how last year was creep in and overwhelm and God gives words that comfort and encourage. I didn’t know one could suffer from post-traumatic stress just by home schooling, but there is definitely a high level of anxiety as we prepare to open the books on a new year. I know we are called to this and I am called to do something I am not gifted in so that He can fill me and enable me and all glory can go to Him because it’s definitely not me.

God will make all our obstacles serve His purposes. We all have mountains in our lives, and often they are people and things that threaten to block the progress of our spiritual life. The obstacles may be a untruths told about us; a difficult occupation; a thorn in the flesh; or our daily cross. And often we pray for their removal, for we tend to think that if only these were removed we would live a more tender, pure, and holy life

‘How foolish you are and slow of heart…!’ (Luke 24:25). These are the very conditions we need for achievement, and they have been put in our lives as the means of producing the gifts and qualities for which we have been praying so long. We pray for patience for many years, and when something begins to test us beyond our endurance, we run from it. We try to avoid it, we see it as some insurmountable obstacle to our desired goal, and we believe that if it was removed, we would experience immediate deliverance and victory.

This is not true! We would simply see the temptations to be impatient end. This would not be patience. The only way genuine patience can be acquired is by enduring the very trials that seem so unbearable today.

Turn from your running and submit….There is nothing in your life that distresses or concerns you that cannot become submissive to the highest purpose. Remember they are God’s mountains. He puts them there for a reason, and we know He will never fail to keep His promise.

I don’t know what this year will hold. We have prayed and discussed and planned and done everything we can think of to make this year better. But we’re still a family of fallen, broken sinners, so struggles will come. We will pray to be stronger people and live on the grace He gives everyday. We will cling to the hope that He is doing something great in our lives and that one day we will see the benefit of our struggles.

Never pray for an easier life – pray to be a stronger person! Never pray for tasks equal to your power – pray for power equal to your tasks. Then doing your work will be no miracle – you will be the miracle.

We must remember that Christ will not lead us to greatness through an easy or self-indulgent life. An easy life does not lift us up but only takes us down. Heaven is always above us, and we must continually be looking toward it.

Some people always avoid things that are costly, or things that require self-denial, self-restraint, and self-sacrifice. Yet it is hard work and difficulties that ultimately lead us to greatness, for greatness is not found by walking the moss-covered path laid out for us through the meadow. It is found by being sent to carve out our own path with our own hands.

For today and tomorrow and many days ahead, I will continue to count the gifts He gives. I will count as blessings the beautiful days and the ugly days, the days I wish would never end and the days that cannot end soon enough. Because if the good things are gifts – sunshine and flowers and laughing children – and all things come from God who only gives good gifts, then aren’t the days full of tears and broken arms and broken hearts gifts too? Not because we are supposed to be all happy-Pollyanna about those hard things, but because of what God can do in our life if we will only submit to those trials. As I look back, I am lying if I don’t say that it is the ugliest, darkest seasons of my life that have worked out the greatest beauty. No, I don’t want them there, but my Jesus He did something amazing with those years and I wouldn’t know Him like I do, wouldn’t love Him like I do, if He hadn’t walked with me down those paths. And He continues to do something amazing with these broken years. Years where I struggle to lead and mother and love well and I fall into bed each night, feeling like I could have – should have – done more. And yet, He’s always there to pick me up, hold me close, and whisper truth into my heart. There’s something amazing about the grace that picks you up out of the mud and makes you clean and beautiful and lovely and once you’ve experienced it, you can never give thanks enough.

1984. Olympic watching with friends

1985. laughing hard

1986. four and one half hours of sleep

1987. coffee to get me moving

1988. time in the Word to get me focused

1989. long lasting rain

1990. all asleep by 8:45 last night

1991. candles flickering

1992. morning coffee (again)

1993. all these feelings of failing, inadequacy

1994. my God who carries me

1995. a twelve year old today

1996. feeling less crazy

1997. dinner at 9:00 p.m.

1998. beef broth spilled everywhere – everyone helping clean it up, including the dog

1999. only a few more days of summer

2000. lovely, productive Saturday

2001. date night happiness – finally cool enough to enjoy eating outside

2002. extended family reunion

2003. sleeping with windows open

2004. lazy Monday morning, last day of our summer

2005. all of this amazing grace

Praying that today you know His goodness and see the gifts He longs to give.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

quotes taken from my well-loved Streams in the Desert

Only Twelve

August 3, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

Today she is twelve but for a whole year I’ve been trying to make her thirteen when others ask. This child who has always seemed older than she is, growing up right before my eyes.

I’ve written before of how she’s my rock, this one; steady, reliable, dependable, and how she honestly makes me a better mother. We’ve battled hard this past year, she and I, and it’s broken my heart to struggle with her this way, so uncharacteristic of our relationship. I know this is a season and it’s her finding her own way in the world as she grows into a young adult. And myself not being one of those attached, child-centered moms, I find it strange how much it hurts to think of her going on without me, when that’s been the goal all along.

But for now she is only twelve and in all my weakness and imperfection I continue to strive to make the most of this limited window of time. I fail daily, but God gives grace and I trust that He will take my efforts and make them something beautiful in her life and her sister’s lives.

And this one, she is already beautiful and lovely and I pray that she sees that, she who has become camera shy and sometimes self conscious. I pray that she sees that she is amazing, both inside and out. I pray that she will look to God for her value and strength and identity and not to some lie sold to her on magazine covers and billboards. I pray that she will know that “true beauty emanates from the woman who boldly and unabashedly knows who she is in Christ“. I pray that no one will ever be able to make her forget that she is loved wildly and madly by the God of the universe and by a Savior who gave His life for her.

This year she is “only twelve”, although she seems so much older and I am thankful. It means more time to enjoy her companionship, her humor, her budding insight into the world around her. It means more time to develop her leadership and gentleness and God-given gifts. It means, by God’s grace, more time with her.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Random Wednesday…..

August 1, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

….where I write about the random things rolling around in my head.

This summer has been really good. Busy and fast, but super-productive and fun most of the time. I haven’t posted any photos of the other redecorating projects I’ve done, and I will soon enough, but I counted the other day and I think I have painted at least thirteen individual pieces of furniture this summer. That’s not including frames and other things that have been painted, purchased, or hung. It’s been so long since I did any real decorating I had forgotten how much I loved it. I’m so thankful for Matt not complaining about it all and helping me with some of the finishing and all of the rearranging.

This summer has also been really hot. Ridiculously hot. Hot enough that this summer-loving girl is dreaming of snow days. I’ve realized I enjoy the hot hot hot much more when all I have to do is lay by some body of water with a book and watch the kids swim. I do not, however, enjoy running when it is 85 degrees and 90% humidity at 6 in the morning. That’s not fun at all.

The girls have really been good this summer. They’ve spent countless hours playing with Legos. They’ve gone to camps and been creative here at home. We painted part of their playhouse, but then it got too hot, so maybe we’ll finish that this fall.

We’ve enjoyed watching the Olympics the past several nights. It was so fun to watch the women’s gymnastics last night. I can’t get over what those athletes can make their bodies do. Unbelievable.

School starts next week. I’m finally ready. Sort of. The girls are ready, though none can admit it.

I think that’s it for me today. Hope your week is going well!

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Better…

July 30, 2012July 30, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

Tonight was a night that called for copious amounts of chocolate. But I didn’t have any. So instead I am going to pause and be grateful for more of the countless undeserved gifts…

1944. oldest child off to her very first retreat

1945. releasing the burden of more belongings, weight lifted from house, life

1946. lying awake listening for God, looking for rest

1947. cleaning out more clutter

1948. Apples to Apples and the ballet recital on DVD – time with my girls

1949. snuggling on the couch with my beloved

1950. hearing all about the oldest child’s first junior high retreat

1951. house full with extra kids, friends

1952. rain!!!

1953. kids who sleep long

1954. free Chick-fil-A

1955. a day to celebrate our marriage

1956. the gift of marriage

1957. pastor’s current sermon series

1958. rest

1959. a nice day with my bookend girls

1960. Camp Enosh

1961. thirteen years of marriage

1962. computers and software that just won’t cooperate

1963. anniversary lunch

1964. the company of my oldest child

1965. sidewalk sale with two of my girls

1966. resting in the afternoon

1967. talking with others who are called and going to serve

1968. an unexpected family night at home

1969. Skyping with our girl

1970. seeing her eyes light up, that big smile

1971. seeking God on hard days

1972. a new day, a new week, a new start

1973. Ann’s words of late

1974. not being able to find my own

1975. this hope, an anchor

1976. words of hope everywhere I turn

1977. rain

1978. cooler temps

1979. furry dog

1980. new computer for school

1981. new-to-us bedroom furniture

1982. family taco run on Sunday evening

1983. watching the Olympics together

And I ask look back on these, just some of His good gifts the past two weeks, my heart is turned from frustration and impatience to thanksgiving and praise and that too is a gift.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Still here…

July 23, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

I really am still here and so many words are bottled up inside but no matter how I try I cannot seem to make them come out right. For now I seem to be working out my thoughts on life with old furniture and paint. I will be back. The words will come when the time is right. Until then, I hope you are continuing to enjoy your summer.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Large Family Logistics – My Take Away

July 10, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

So it’s summer, my normal season for serious reading. I feel like this year painting has taken the place of reading, but I’ve been able to do a fair amount, just the same. Today I want to share about a book that I started at the beginning of the year and just finished in May or early June. It was very inspirational and full of good, even if not personally applicable, ideas. The book is Large Family Logistics: The Art and Science of Managing the Large Family by Kim Brenneman. I will preface by saying that when judged by the size of my husband’s family or my father’s family, I in no way feel like we have a “large” family. I do know, however, that by societal standards, we do, and that there are some real logistics that go in to making our home and lives run smoothly and I’m always looking for ways to make it run more efficiently.

I first saw this book at a friend’s house and was intrigued by it. The cover is lovely and the layout makes it very readable.

The author begins by discussing the Wise Woman of Proverbs and the blessing she is to her husband and household. “It is difficult to underestimate the value of the encouragement we bring when we speak kind words to our family. Be Christ to your family and others. Praise them for the good things they do. Bless them with uplifting words. Show His love through the kindness of your tongue.” (p. 34) Also, “When we look at our work, we need to see it for what it is: serving the Lord, our husbands, our children, and all those who visit our home. Caring for others is an awesome responsibility. There is beauty in the necessary mechanics, and we need not look at them as something to just endure so that we can move on to the next thing. By all means, make your work efficient, but while you do what you have to do, learn to embrace it as work done unto the Lord that will impact generations for eternity!” (p. 36)

She then moves on to Goals, Systems, and Self-Discipline where she says, “If we want our home to be characterized by order and tranquility, we must lead by example.” (p. 53)

In the chapter on attitude, she addresses the phrase “I can’t” – not only when it comes from discouraged children, but when it comes from discouraged moms. She says, “I can’t is something we don’t say. I can’t gets replaced by praying without ceasing.” (p. 58)

She talks about making a plan and submitting that plan to God. “Plans are a guide, not a master. A plan serves you. You do not serve the plan. A plan gives you confidence. You know how to plan ahead and you know how to recover from an event.” (p. 66) This is a good reminder for this task-driven home maker – the plan is a tool, not a task-master. “An interrupted day is God’s plan for the life of a mother (see Proverbs 16:1-9). We cannot know what He wills for us and for our children ahead of time. But when interruptions come, we can say with confidence, ‘This is God’s will. He must have something to teach me, or the children, or maybe He is blessing me and the children with this.’ Or ‘Somehow, God is being glorified in this event. I need to live obediently and not grump about it or fight it.’ Being upset about interrupted plans is, in essence, fighting with God.” (p.66)

She talks about teaching children to work and redeeming the time we have alone, instructing a child in a new chore, and life with little children. In this practical section of the book, she gives tips on how to most efficiently clean a room, a house, and how to involve the children in the process. She divides her week up into days, and while I think this is a wonderful idea, it does not apply well to us personally. But it is a good spring board for having our own routine of “days”, even if they have to be shuffled around from week to week. A “baking day”, a “grocery day”, a “computer day”, etc.

One thing she advocates is a “Laundry Day”. Again, this one doesn’t work for us personally in this season of life. But within the chapter on laundry she talks about “Four Loads by Four”, wherein you want to complete four loads of laundry by 4 p.m. I really liked that little phrase and changed it to “Three Loads by Three”, since I rarely do four loads in one day. It does help me stay on track!

She goes on to discuss morning and evening routines, as well as mealtime management, afternoon chore time, and the blessed Quiet Hour. I love the quiet hour. We’ve done this since the beginning of time and cannot imagine life without it.

As a mama who does not always possess a gentle tongue, the author’s words on page 307 were encouraging, “Every single time you talk to them (your children), force yourself to smile. ‘Fake it ’til you make it.’ When you speak while you’re smiling, your tone of voice changes, and you will find that the words that come out of your mouth are more gracious.”

Large Family Logistics has been a great blessing to me, not only for the practical tips offered in managing my home, but for the encouragement provided by a seasoned mother in the areas of being a wife, mother, home maker, and home educator.

Starting Again with Giving Thanks

July 9, 2012 / Sara Vincent / 1 Comment

It’s been so long since I’ve written consistently, I don’t know where to start. Life bubbles up around, books waiting to be read and reviewed, photos long to be posted and shared. Summer days find some paradoxical mixture of leisure and frenzy and I long for the routine of the school year while simultaneously denying its return.

As is the habit, though, the best place to start seems to be with giving thanks, by continuing to list the gifts, even when it begins to seem routine. For this wonderful listing of gifts serves as its own sort of journal of our lives and these crazy, joy-filled days.

1895. a new day

1896. fresh starts

1897. a clean fridge with one less glass shelf

1898. cold a/c

1899. school ordered for next year

1900. playing cards with my kiddos

1901. painting with the second born

1902. summer fruit

1903. children working and playing so well together

1904. sounds of a summer storm

1905. another cast removed

1906. a water slide that won’t inflate

1907. starting early

1908. a found wallet

1909. a truly restful Sunday

1910. enjoying the Olympic trials with my girls

1911. just spending time together

1912. vegetables chopped up in large summer salad

1913. warm bread out of the oven

1914. more work done alongside the children

1915. more furniture painted, given fresh face

1916. watching husband splash and play with our children at the local pool

1917. third born turning 9

1918. Legos, nerf guns, purse and dress – gifts for a girl of varied interests

1919. {accidentally skipping a number in listing the gifts}

1920. being bone tired and falling into bed after a long, hot day

1921. hot summer days

1922. time in the Word

1923. staying up too late talking with my beloved

1924. house picked up

1925. hours by the pool

1926. children learning, in a non-dangerous way, that not everyone who claims to be a friend really is

1927. swim lessons

1928. budgets

1929. 80* mornings

1930. all of these hot hot mornings

1931. laughing hard over Haiti tales

1932. wondering when she will be home with us

1933. July 4th

1934. freedom

1935. sleepy, slow moving kiddos

1936. watching the youngest find confidence in the water

1937. teacher friend who encourages, pushes, never gives up

1938. kitchen scrubbed clean

1939. dad who comes to help bury hamster on a hot summer day

1940. spending the evening with my parents

1941. getting our money’s worth at the pool

1942. another restful Sunday

1943. husband home, time together

I hope you are also finding time to remember the gifts He daily gives. What a wonderful legacy to list His gifts, and look back on His hand, His presence in each day.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

Almost Double Digits

June 28, 2012 / Sara Vincent / 2 Comments

Nine years ago yesterday, she entered the world, right on her due date, in spite of multiple attempts on my part to convince her to come early. Her labor was the shortest and easiest by far, a stark contrast to what her first few years would bring. I’ve written before of how our third born has given me a run for my money from day one and how she turned my whole world upside and regularly caused me to question everything I thought I knew about parenting and how she daily amazes me with her capacity to love others right where they are.

Since that post two years ago, I have continued to watch her grow and be amazed. She has taught me to be more sensitive with my words, more intentional with my touch, more selfless with my time. She prays with great faith and has the honesty to question why sometimes God doesn’t seem to hear. She wants to be a missionary and already shares the gospel regularly with her friends. She wears her heart on her sleeve, but has incredible compassion for others. At only nine, she has a way with babies and little children that I’ve never had. She has a zeal for life and energy like no other. She is naturally strong and agile and can climb like a human monkey. She is passionate and does nothing halfway, except maybe cleaning her room.

Chandler is far, far, far from perfect and we rub each other wrong far too often, but she is genuinely striving to be more like her Savior and we’re learning together what that looks like. When God brought her into our world nine years ago, I was not prepared to be a mother to three children under three. But He gave great grace (and my own mom who was unemployed for six months) and I wouldn’t trade this tender-hearted wild child for the world.

Happy 9th Birthday, Chandler. I know God has big plans for you and I am so blessed that He has chosen me to be part of them. I love you!

Forty Five Years {A re-post in honor of my parents’ anniversary and Father’s Day}

June 19, 2012 / Sara Vincent / Leave a comment

This post was is two years old now, so today my parents celebrate their 47th anniversary. That’s so amazing to me. I’m still so proud of them for sticking together through some really hard times. And I’m still really thankful for my beloved who continues to weather the storms of life with me and makes me the most blessed woman on earth.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Today is my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. Forty-five years. That’s a long time. My parents haven’t always had a great marriage. Sometimes I don’t know if they even felt like they had a good marriage. But they have stuck with each other for forty.five.years.

Matt and I have had, in my opinion, the second hardest season of our marriage over the past eight months. The first year was without a doubt the hardest year. It was the year I would have walked had I not been pregnant so soon after our wedding. I’m not proud of that fact. I just wasn’t strong then and was prone to looking for the easy way out. I often don’t feel I’m strong now. I’m just convinced that I’m in this for the long haul. I’m grateful for that early pregnancy. Not only because it gave us our first born, but because I honestly believe it saved our marriage.

The past several months have been a different kind of difficult. We’ve let life interrupt our marriage and haven’t made as much time to be together. Matt’s knee has kept him from running which had become a huge part of “us”. We stopped meeting early once a week and lost that time of communicating and sharing what God was doing in our lives. Because we don’t feel connected our words get sharp and our defenses go up. He says one thing. I hear something else. I respond without grace. And the cycle continues until we both feel broken and defeated.

As I strolled the aisles of WalMart – alone! – the other night, I talked with God about this and how I was so tired of it and how it was wearing us down. He gently showed me that when we get in these ruts I stop thinking about all of my husband’s wonderful attributes and begin to focus on his weaknesses or some perceived way that he’s failed me. And I can’t think the best of my husband when I’m only thinking the worst.

So, today, even though it’s not Monday, I’m counting some of the ways I’m grateful for the amazing man I’m married to, that I share this life with, that I will walk beside until “death do us part”.

his amazing, driving, never-ceasing ability to work hard, even when he doesn’t feel like it
his orneriness
how his eyes disappear when he laughs
his laugh – oh, how I love his laugh!
how he loves me
how he’s still so attracted to me
that he’s not afraid to push me or challenge me to do better, be better
his patience with me, the girls
his abundantly generous heart
that he’s a man of amazing integrity; a man of his word
that he’s never been willing to settle for a mediocre marriage
that I have no fear of him ever leaving me, that my heart is safe with him
knowing that the Enemy of our souls will do everything in his power to destroy this thing we have and that my husband is strong to defend us on his knees

As I reflect on my parents forty-five years of marriage and I contemplate Father’s Day tomorrow, I want to say thank you. Thank you to my parents for sticking together – through good and bad. You are now blessed to have a wonderful marriage for all your times of weathering the storms. Thank you to my dad for being courageous enough to go against the grain and take us where you felt God leading us, even though it might cost you your family. Thanks to both of you for the years you spent on your knees for me. You know now that God heard you. Thank you to my in-laws for raising such an amazing son for me to marry. Thank you to my father-in-law for breaking the cycle of divorce in your family and constantly reassuring your children that you would never leave their mother. Thank you for leaving a legacy of faithfulness to your children. And thank you to my husband, for sticking through that first awful year together and for never being willing to settle for anything less than a great marriage. Thank you for being such an amazing husband to me and father to our girls. I wouldn’t want to do this life with anyone else. I love you.