That’s what Norah called it. (In her knacky way of accidentally generating strangely appropriate terms. As a toddler she also spontaneously nicknamed Alex “StudyDud.” See what I mean? She has a gift.)
Was it really nine years ago that I put on a white dress and bound my life to his until death should end it? We said better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health and meant it. It was actually on purpose that we chose Habakkuk 3:17-19 as our wedding text:
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
At the moment when we married the fig trees were blossoming left and right and we saw no reason for concern regarding the fields. Though in the nine years following there have been seasons with few fruit on the vines, this may be the first time the herd have vacated the stalls.
One of the sweetest realities of marriage is that, in such times (and we all have them) each has the shoulder of the other to lean on, watching the south end of the last cow.
“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
He is the “God of salvation”: meaning not just that he’ll save whatever situation you are in this time (He will). But that he is the God who saved us. He is the God who sees us, like he saw Hagar sitting alone in the dirt and totally without options in Genesis 16. God is in the hard times who he always was. With a lift of the heart we remember it. Circumstances change. But he is the same.




























































But I continued to water them.










