Happy Anniversary To Us!

Yesterday, March 13th, was our 9th wedding anniversary! I find that totally unbelievable. Brett and I have known each other for one third of our lives now!
I wanted to take some time telling Brett and the world (or our four or so blog readers) how much I adore and am thankful for my amazing husband.

When Brett and I met for the first time, I was a freshly caught, but far from clean fish. All of you Athey Creekers will get this reference. I had accepted the Lord about 3 months prior to us meeting. My husband was raised in a Catholic family and became born again at 14 so he truly lived a life set apart for the Lord from the beginning. Although he was attending college far from home, he never fell into the worldly trappings of college life. I am proud to say that my husband has never been intoxicated in his life and has never touched a drug. He also made and maintained close friendships with girls growing up yet purposed not to really date seriously knowing the Lord would someday make it clear to him who his future wife was to be.
Being the youngest (by 11 years) of 7 children, he lived to make not only his parents, but his older siblings proud. He excelled at everything he did. Academically he was always on top and finished his high school career as Valedictorian. Athletically, although I don't remember all of his stats, he was a GREAT football and baseball player.
Sadly, tragedy hit the Bodine family when Brett's father was diagnosed with and then eventually died from Leukemia at the end of Brett's freshman year of college. He remembers taking his finals the week of his dad's funeral.

Fast forward to April 10, 1998. The day the "tornado", the fiery red head, the "perfect storm" entered his world :) I won't go into all the details of our meeting for the sake of time so just ask me someday if you're interested.
The first words I said to him when he picked me up for our first date were "It's about time you got here!" I was ripping on him for daring to pick me up late :)
How true my words really were. It was definitely time for him to enter my life.
At the ripe age of 20 I was pretty wiped out emotionally and experientially. I certainly didn't have your typical childhood so my trust in people was certainly damaged. My mom had very tragically passed away when I was 16 and I had been living as a "grown up" since.
And although at that point saved, Brett was one of my first and most amazing proofs of God's existence and His great love for me. And to this day, he still very much is.
When the Lord put it on Brett's heart to marry me I am sure there were moments when he asked "are you sure, Lord?" You don't come from the kind of pain I had experienced at such a young age and not have your fair share of issues. More than anything, I just didn't trust or believe in his love for me.
And although I didn't set out consciously to do so, I was somehow certain that if I just pushed him hard enough and tested him enough that his love for me would crumble under pressure. I was wrong. He always remained steadfast, long suffering and faithful to me. I'm not writing this to say that our first year or so of marriage was all bad or to give the impression that I beat myself up for my many failures as a then 21 year old wife. I just am SO grateful that my husband faithfully loved me through those days and months that were not easy circumstantially or otherwise. Brett really was the first person in my life up to that point who demonstrated real love to me - agape love.

Brett and I have always been best friends. That was obvious from the get go. We are so polar opposite personality wise but it truly is a match made in heaven. I certainly add excitement to our lives. There are very few dull moments day to day... let's just put it that way :)
Brett on the other hand certainly adds stability and wisdom to my world.
I live entirely in the heart realm. Brett lives almost entirely in the head realm. When those two worlds come together it's a perfect combination. The Lord doesn't want us to be ruled by our emotions. Yet He also wants us to love greatly. For without love... well, here's the scripture that tells us what we're like without love:

I Corinthians 13:1-3 - If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Another great thing in our marriage is humor! Both of us love to laugh and my husband is one of the funniest and wittiest people I know.
One of the things I most love about him is that he has enabled me to laugh at myself.
On one of our first dates we were enjoying lunch out. I was eating some sort of sandwich accompanied by a rather scrumptious dill pickle half. I innocently bit into the pickle and things began to not go so well. I, at this point in my life, was obsessed with both proper etiquette and my appearance. So as I tried to gracefully eat this pickle, it retaliated... or exploded - I am not sure which. All I know is that I had both pickle juice and bits of pickle flowing down my face. And as Brett busted into muffled hysterics, I for the first time ever, was able to laugh along with him. What an important lesson that was and still is for me :)

Let's see.... Let's go back to my husband's brilliant mind, shall we? He has his undergrad in Exercise Physiology and went on to get his Masters Degree at George Fox. If we hadn't have been in the midst of childbirth classes his final year of grad school, he would have completed his Masters with a 4.0.
Instead he got like a 3.9 :)
So he's a science and math guy who, are you ready for this?, happens to have a strange love of teenagers. This truly is one of life's greatest mysteries to me. He gets paid a modest salary to spend all day shaping and molding the hormonal and mysterious minds of our youth. He does this in a not so posh setting to say the least. Centennial High School is truly a battlefield. Some of the school's "accomplishments" to date:
*It has the highest student pregnancy rate in the state of Oregon.
*It has a large daycare facility on site for the student population.
*It has quite an active gay/straight alliance club which celebrates its "diversity" openly at student assemblies.
*There is an ever growing gang population.
*The district has one of the highest free and reduced lunch populations in the Portland metro area.
I could go on but you get the idea. Every school day for the last five years my husband has bravely gone straight into this battlefield and has done so with a tremendous amount of strength. He has proverbs covering his classroom walls in this public school. He has used his math classes on multiple occasions to speak the truth to students who are lied to in frightening ways each and every day. He fills them in on the truth of our national and world history, the sanctity of marriage and precious new life. He truly does love on these kids who desperately need it. But often does so while being called expletives and being openly disrespected with little to no administrative backing. And don't forget he's expected to teach quadratic equations to students who often can't add simple fractions. I am so proud of him for doing such truly noble work in order to support our family. Because a single teacher income is challenging to live on, Brett has given up the only daily prep period he has this year to teach an extra class. He also teaches night school every Tuesday night, does private tutoring after school and he teaches summer school for all but a week and a half of his summer break. He does this so I can stay home with our boys and he wouldn't think even for a moment of having it any other way.

To continue bragging on him, he has some other note worthy abilities. He can fix anything and everything. He is a techie genius. He is a fantastic artist. He is Brett the builder :) He taught himself to play the guitar and is really quite good at it. He is a master impressionist and has NY and Scottish accents mastered (so funny!). He is a lover of history and political science and keeps me informed on the important issues. He is the one is our home who can do more than stare blankly at our sewing machine. Most importantly, he makes the best chocolate chip cookies on earth.

He is an AMAZING father. Both Josh and Matthew run to the door and light up when I say the magic words... "Daddy's home!" He loves them with all of his heart and demonstrates so every day. He disciplines them in love and spends lots of time just being silly with them. He reads them the Word and does great reenactments of Bible stories using lincoln logs, legos and little people :)
He will proudly coach them in T-ball and soccer and I'm thinking his love of golf will eventually earn him two great golf buddies.

Brett is truly a man after God's own heart. He rises each morning at 5:15 to make sure he has enough time to read the Word with me and spend time in prayer before he heads off to work.
He loves to study the Bible and has a well worn bible or two to prove it. He is a great spiritual leader for me and our boys and I am so thankful for his fervent love of the Lord.

So Brett, you're probably the only one who took the time to read through my rather lengthy post :) But truly if I spent hours and days trying to name everything I love about you I would have time for little else.
You are such an incredible husband to me. Nine years ago on our wedding video, in our pre-wedding interview, I said that you make me want to be a better person. I know now that I will never be a "better" person this side of Heaven. I do however strive with each day to be a more Christ like wife, mom, friend and disciple of our Lord. My love of Jesus is the driving force behind all I do and my love of you not only is fantastic motivation, it also makes life so very rich and rewarding. Happy Anniversary! I love you with all my heart!