Beans & Bruises & Best Friends

Beloved:
            My garden is taking shape.  We made these super inexpensive trellises my husband found on YouTube, so now my roses, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and blackberries can climb like crazy.  It was sort of like a date in that we had fun and laughed a lot, but sort of not like a date because we yelled a little and my arms got scratched up and bruised.  This evening we are celebrating our thirty-first wedding anniversary by picking up dinner and then planting beans, lavender, sunflowers, and more tomatoes in these containers invented by Carl’s favorite vlogger, Leon JSloan.  We 

got the cattle feed tubs for free so you can imagine how excited we are to get started.

            Once upon an anniversary, cheapo gardening would not have been my first choice for celebrating.  Now I can’t imagine anything more fun.  What we do is so much less interesting than just being together.  I love being roommates almost all the time.  He cooks for me and laughs at almost all my jokes.  Sometimes he sits by me when I have to do things that really stress me out.  He’s known me a long, long time and gets offended on my behalf as a best friend should.  He’s helped me grow and helped me be braver than I ever would be without him.  Even when he drives me crazy, I am so grateful for him. 

            Thirty-one years have flown by; the days have been amazing, awful, and everything in between.  Death has dwindled the generations before us while the ones coming after just keep growing.  Our lives have turned out richer than either of us would ever have thought to ask for.  I’ve been too blessed to ask for anything, but in my heart of hearts I pray we might have another thirty-one or two, just to see what might come next. 

           Be they spouse, cousin or best friend, they are God’s best gifts to us.