It wasn't any secret when we met that I have a mind of my own and a will that is as strong as iron. It was clear early on that I wasn't someone who could ever, would ever, stay tethered for long.
We had barely begun when you said goodbye to me at the security line and trusted in our new love to carry us through months spent continents apart. A year into our marriage there was another month in which my messages drifted in through emails sent from internet cafes across three Middle Eastern countries. You never once complained, but rather gave wings to my dreams. I couldn't have gone had I not known you were the home I would return to. My love for the big wide world is as much a part of me as my love for you. I cannot separate the two any more than bone and marrow. There is nothing I love more than when we get to explore it together. My hair has faded over the years from the fiery red you first knew to more muted tones, but the stereotypical passion of a redhead in me hasn't faded one bit. I walk the fine line between wanting so badly to please everyone and being just rebellious enough to let others know I won't fit into a mold they have defined for me. And you never seem to mind, either my stubbornness and strong will or my anxiety over what others think. I don't know how you do it, but you always make me feel like I am doing just the right thing and that you will love me no matter what. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder how your quiet strength and my wandering spirit find such a fit in each other. When I am a tempest, you are the shore that brings the violent surges of the sea to a halt upon the rocks.
I have these big dreams that can't be contained and you let me dream them, aren't threatened by their ability to rock our world sometimes. You just remain, this constant force of faith and peace when everything else seems to be spinning. When my mind won't slow down, won't accept on faith that God will provide or that one of my crazy dreams could actually succeed - there you are. You believe in me when I can't believe in myself. You hold me up with faith when mine gets rocky. You saw the fire burning in me and have never once tried to quench it. You show up with a can of gasoline and ignite it again when I get weary, when the words won't come, or believing anymore seems too big a task. Yet not even I ever dreamed of the places God has taken us, the way our dreams became one and changed with the seasons of life over the past ten years. Thank you, love, for the way you give me wings but also anchor me to the home we have made together, the beautiful family God has given us. Thank you for never giving up on me when I probably would have. Thank you for your quiet faith, the way you listen to all my words like each one matters, and for the prayers I know you hold out for me. Thank you for showing me what it really means to lay your life down for another - the way you lay yours down for me. "When all the world is spinning ‘round Like a red balloon way up in the clouds And my feet will not stay on the ground You anchor me back down."
-Mindy Gledhill
Lee - All year, I've revisited essays I wrote years ago. Some I've revised, realizing how much God has changed me in the past few years. I've become more myself, more in touch with who God created me to be but I kept hidden out of fear. Some pieces have been a beautiful confirmation of how much has stayed the same—like this one.
Eight years ago when I spoke of big dreams and the big wide world, I had no idea the ride we were about to go on. I wrote this mere days before our trip to Hyderabad that changed the trajectory of our lives. That trip launched our move to South Asia, another dream pursued and achieved and then lost. New dreams were birthed and through all the tumultuous seas that would shake me over the last near-decade, you remained my anchor.
There are no words for how thankful I am. These words are but a pale shadow of the depth of my gratitude. I love you. Happy 19. - Nicole
*Originally written February 16, 2016. Republished December 31, 2024.
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