And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 )
Today we have been married 27 years and I wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I love you, appreciate you, and thank God for you. Kim, you have given me the greatest gift that one person can give another: the gift of your unwavering, supportive, forgiving love. I spend a great deal of time putting words together—sermons and blogs and Bible studies—and yet I’m struggling to find the right words to tell you just how much you mean to me.
As I think back through our married life and my responsibilities to you as a husband, I know that all too often I have fallen miserably short of loving you as God commands a husband to love his wife. Yet I continue to pray each day that I will love you as Christ loves His church . . . to give myself up for you . . . to love you as I love myself. Kim, I commit to you that I will continue striving to reach this goal for as long as we both shall live.
You have stood by me through 27 seasons, some of them filled with plenty and others with want. Through it all, you have never wavered in your commitment to me, to our family, and to our ministry of service to God. When God said to Adam, “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18), He did exactly that by giving me YOU. You are everything I am not . . . that’s a lot to fill in for . . . and you have faithfully walked by my side every step of the way. From the wellness business we ran together for eleven years to the church God called us to plant back in 2012, I cannot imagine doing any of it without you by my side . . . and often out front, leading as the Lord directs.
You’ve given us four incredible children in Brock, Jenna, Katie, and Tank. Truly, you have given me so much to thank God for! You are the absolute best mom in the world, and together we have prayerfully partnered in providing a loving, Christ-centered environment for each of our children to grow and mature in their faith.
You have delivered discernment when I have been dull; you have given gladness when I have been gloomy; you have continued calm when I have been chaotic. My beloved, you are the anchor of our home and our ministry. How do I ever rightly say “Thank you” for that? Perhaps I never will have just the right words, but please know that I thank our loving Lord for you. I wish I’d thought to say it before the writers of Jerry Maguire did: Kim, you complete me.
I don’t know what our Lord has in store for us in the years ahead, but I promise to continue working on growing into the kind of loving, serving husband God has called me to be. You are my best friend in all the world and my true love.
Happy 27th anniversary, sweetheart!
Tommy
Grace for the Race 