The night he became my Lanny Love...

Nine years ago tonight

I had my last first date.

Nine years ago tomorrow morning

I had my second-to-last second date,

one that had already been arranged.

 

We had been "talking" on eHarmoney

for nearly a month when I agreed to meet.

When he asked me for my last second date the following day,

I gladly accepted!

I closed my account that second date night.

I knew, barring something very unexpected,

I did not want to keep looking.

I was pretty sure I had found "the one"

God had chosen for me.

 

He beat me to the restaurant that first night

and I arrived a few minutes early.

I walked into the lobby of my "first date" restaurant

and there he was in all of his glory,

and it was a glorious sight!!!

He was even more handsome in person

than his pictures reflected.

 

He opened his arms to hug me hello

and I did what for me was unprecedented,

I walked into his arms and hugged him back.

And though it was brief,

it wasn't even the distant side hug that most receive.

(I'm not a big hugger outside of intimate relationship.)

 

We shut the place down that night,

talking for three hours at the table

then another half hour or so standing at my car.

It was the single longest first date I had!

We never left the table!

He blessed the food and asked God's blessing on our time together.

And bless it He did!!!

Many of you have heard this story before,

but I will continue to share it.

February 28 will always be a cherished, precious date!

It was the night that changed my life

and made it better than I could ever have hoped or dreamed. 

New jewelry

I bought myself a new ring.

It is a piece of jewelry I have been thinking about for several years.

I didn't think of it in the beginning,

but at about the second year of remarriage.

At first I wished I had thought of it in the beginning,

but I wouldn't yet have fully appreciated

or understood the meaning of my new ring.

When my Al and I were dating

and it was apparent that we would marry,

his dad used to warn him:

"If you marry her, you're marrying her family!"

 And he was right.

I also married his.

 

I thought about that when my Lanny Love and I

knew we would marry,

particularly in light of the fact that,

as we discovered with our official engagement,

not all our children were happy about it.

 

I began to think about what my late father-in-law's statement really meant.

You see, my family was not normal.

He wanted to be sure that my Al understood that

his marriage to me

meant a deep relationship with them.

In all of their...different-ness.

He wanted to be sure he understood

that our marriage would be affected

by each of our relationships with my family.

And it was.

 

My Lanny Love and I became one on our wedding day.

But it wasn't the same as when he married his Judy

or I my Al.

We each spoke words of love and commitment 

    to one another.

We also each spoke words of love and commitment 

    to the children we were gaining.

And we each spoke words of love and a promise to remember

    my Al and his Judy.

 

Yes, my Lanny Love and I became one that day,

but something else happened.

That day, just as he became

"flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone"

in the eyes of God and in my heart,

so did his children.

Can I tell you something?

I do not have step-children!

I don't have bonus-children!

I don't have children-in-law!

I have children!

They are all mine as surely as if I had borne them

and I love them with a fierceness that surprised me!

 

I began to have a desire to symbolize that

just as I wear a symbol of my love and commitment 

to my amazing Lanny Love.

 

I would adopt them legally if I could!

But I can't.

In the last several years though,

they have grown to be so much a part of me

that I wanted to do something "formal".

I thought about presenting them with unofficial adoption papers.

It wasn't the right thing.

 

I began to think about how

Christ Himself relates His relationship to the church -

that's us folks -

to marriage.

(see Genesis 2:24

Ephesians 5

among others)

It began to occur to me.

I truly was married to not just my Lanny Love,

but to his family,

and he mine.

Every. Last. One.

Our children and their families, 

    our grandchildren and their families,

        his parents, 

           our siblings and their families, 

                our aunts and uncles and cousins, 

                    and our late spouses.

 

About a year ago,

I knew what I wanted.

I wanted a wedding ring.

More than even adoption,

marriage is the joining of lives,

the deep heart commitment to love and cherish

    as my own

        for all of my life,

            becoming one,

                becoming family!

I wanted a symbol of my commitment to all our children

along with the symbol of my commitment to our marriage.

 

And so I bought a ring.

It was custom made to snug up against my wedding band

and contains ten birthstones:

    two in the center, mine and his;

        down one side, his direct descendants,

            Tiffany, Aleisha, Zach

                and my Lanny Love's Judy;

        down the other side, my direct descendants,

            Steffan, Chrys, Kim

                and my Al.

I have been so blessed!

 

 

Wherever you go, I will go; 

wherever you live, I will live. 

Your people will be my people, 

and your God will be my God.

 

                            ~~ Ruth 1:16 ~~