My Beautiful Bride of 25 Years

 

The most beautiful woman I know, my best friend, the person I have the most fun with. We met 26 1/2 years ago and married 25 years ago today.

I've learned through the years that she is a woman of much grace and much grit.

She's a fabulous wife, mother, daughter, and friend. She's kept a disciplined spiritual life, studying God's Word and growing in prayer. She has great discernment, with the ability to see through many persons' smoke screens.

She's mentored women for years, investing in their lives.

She invested more than 15 years of her life as a homemaker and homeschool mom - not a job for the weak at heart. She schooled our three children - all with different learning styles - with many different curriculums, extra-curricular activities, and various homeschool groups and cooperatives - including a couple that she directed. She has been a marvelous mother, and I couldn't ask for a better one for our children.

She led music at churches as a volunteer for more than a decade - and as a paid staff member for a decade or more. She's extremely gifted rallying others to produce excellent work, a maximizer who seeks to make things better, and a relator who deeply cares about those under her charge.

She's been beloved by many people she led, shepherded, befriended, and mentored.

I've endured her being mistreated, maligned, misrepresented, and manipulated. And bless her - she is not afraid to speak the truth and confront unhealthy situations - even when it costs her. And sometimes it has cost her dearly.

When life has thrown hardships and unexpected setbacks, she digs deep, bounces back, and keeps on ticking.

She makes me laugh more than anyone I know.

When she walked into the room at a party in Fuller Apartments at SBTS in January of 1997, she wowed me instantly. We spent a lot of time together that weekend with a group of friends, and I couldn't stop talking to her.

The next Saturday night, I took her out to Tumbleweed restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the most attractive woman I'd ever seen. And sitting there at that small table, I told myself, "Rhett, this is the woman you are going to marry."

Twenty-six and a half years later, we love each other more than we did then.

I love her to the moon and back. As I sang to her on our wedding day, "Tracey Alane, you are a gift of love to me."