Eight years ago today I married the love of my life. It has been an action packed 8 years of marriage so far. We met by chance online and things progressed from there.  Who would have  imagined all we have been through these past years.  It started out ideally enough with us both being fully in love and living life.  I was a plant manager and she had started volunteering at various places. We traveled because I was fearless in driving us anywhere. We lived an ideal life until that fateful day in October 2015 when I was stricken with a brain bleed and ended up in the hospital where I fell and then slipped into a coma for a couple months.  Miraculously I came to but things were different.  I had to learn how to walk again and how to see again. I have done both but not without the love and support of my beautiful, loving wife.

Without my loving wife I would be lost, truly.  She stood by me when the days were bleak and there wasn’t much hope.  Several times she ran the pastor off from the room where they were coming to administer the last rites so to speak.  She prayed over me specifically along with a family friend for me to improve, which I did.  She stood by me when no one else would. She was truly my special angel watching over me.

All this happened five years ago and we have been on a wonderful journey over that time. It hasn’t been easy on both of us.  My wife calls me Preston 2.0.  Sometimes I can go off the deep end. I wasn’t stable as I was before.  It took the doctors a couple of years to get my meds right and thankfully they did. She stood by me through thick and thin. She put up with my fits of rage and panic.  She put up with my health issues. She put up with me. Period.  It wasn’t the life she signed up for and not the life I had promised her when we married.

Yet we have drawn closer to God through it all.  My wife will tell you I have walked down to the front of church more times than she can count.  However I wanted to make sure I got it right which I did this last time. I don’t care how many times you walk down to the aisle to give your life to the Lord if you’re not right it’s not done.  I feel stronger now in my walk with God and I hope our life is better for it.  Not that it has been bad, we just have more to look forward too.

We continue our walk through life together. I cannot imagine spending life with anyone else. She is my saint, my loving wife, my friend, my lifetime companion.  She has been through so much even before she met me with losing her first husband tragically and then seeing her son’s grandmother dying a horrible death. Then tragically losing the other grandfather in a tragic accident. This family has been through enough to last several lifetimes. Yet we are still here through the grace of God. We serve Him daily or we at least try to.

We are thankful for all He has given us. He didn’t promise us life would be easy and we are proof of that. He said He would be with us through the good and the bad. He has been. So has she. With all she has been through in her life, my wife’s testimony lives in her everyday.  She lives her life as if everyday could be her last.  She loves hard, she fights for those she loves, and she cares.  It is hard on her sometimes and I am hard on her sometimes. I love her though and she loves me.  We love each other. We love to look forward to the day we can spend eternity in Heaven.  With no more disabilities to hold us back.  I won’t need a cane anymore.  She won’t need hearing aids anymore.  She’ll be able to hear and sing.  Singing His praise.  I long to hear that, though I love to hear her sing now.

One day she will hear as we “normal people” do. It will be a wonderful day.  She will sing praises to Him and everyone will rejoice with her. I know I will.  I love you sweetie and there is no one I would rather share my life with. Either here on Earth or in Heaven in the day to come.