I don’t know how many people get to share their life with their true love AND their best friend but I do.  It’s amazing!  As the story goes, about 8 1/2 years ago, our eyes met across an empty dining hall in a cabin in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains. 

It was love at first sight.

I didn’t talk to her for two weeks.  But I really wanted to.  Our first conversation, which continues to this day, started while staring at a wall-sized map of the world.  We talked about the places we most wanted to go and see in the wide world.

China was at the top of our list.

That night China wasn’t even mentioned I don’t think, but very soon it became the focus of all our attention and our drive to GO OUT.

If I had to summarize these beautiful 7 years of marriage with one word it would be: movement.  It’s not a frilly word, but that makes it no less elegant.  Operatic music has movements.  History has movements.  Dance is defined by movements.  The passage of time is marked in various stages of movement.

At the beginning we started out on opposite coasts, but quickly migrated towards one another.  We have moved cross-continent and across continents.  We have moved from being a solitary couple to being parents of two.  We have moved from house to apartment to house and back again (about 7 times in our seven years).  We have been immersed in movements of faith: from dreams to ideals, from doubt to belief, from frustration to perseverance, from conception to fruition, from desert to oasis.  In all these movements we have grown (in both minuscule and major ways) in our love for God and each other.  And through it all our sense of humor has remained intact.

I don’t think it is very possible to adequately describe one’s marriage to another person or couple.  Each one is unique because each person in this world is unique.  To say that I couldn’t imagine my life (these last 8 1/2 years) without Christa would be quite an understatement.  It’s like saying I can’t imagine my life without myself–we’re ONE flesh and you just can’t divide that.  Only death does that kind of parting.

But what I can say is that I would NOT trade these seven years for any other offers.  They have been the richest in my life.  Even in the more difficult movements of life, I know I have a person to rely on, to rest in, to cherish, and to be cherished by.

So why would there be any ‘itch’?