A letter to Sam

You know love, I was just thinking about it and I want to tell you a few things I have on my mind.

I feel like the last few days we've been particularly close. I think it's partially in part to our anniversary having just passed and that giving us a moment to contemplate the last couple of years that we've been married.

Well I just wanted to tell you that I love you with all my heart and I think you are such a wonderful, wonderful man. I absolutely love that you are my very best friend. Looking back now, I can appreciate God's divine plan in the way we came to be together. Before we ever dated, we shared a beautiful friendship that grew strong over a number of years. I wasn't afraid to show you my true self during that time because you were my best friend and it wasn't a superficial relationship we had where I put on a facade in order to impress you or try to win your admiration. Then during a later time when I struggled through a heartbreaking relationship, you were there for me and I found comfort in your voice.

And even though I didn't know it at the time, you loved me through it all. You loved me when I was first afraid to give us a chance, when I broke your heart and was inconsiderate and mean to you. You loved me when I wasn't a best friend to you. When I loved someone else. But my favorite part and the one I most love to remember is that you STILL loved me years later when I was realized that I loved you.

You are so wonderful.

I love you more now, than I ever have, because, like I told you yesterday, you are my hero. I admire you so much because you work so hard to provide for our family while struggling to get enough sleep during the day. All that while helping me around the house and with Ella. You are the husband I've always wanted and I believe you when you tell me you will love me for always. I don't doubt you. You've never given me a reason to. Quite the contrary, actually- you've always been most trustworthy, because you've taken care of the heart I've given you. You love me so passionately in the way you hold me, the way you look at me, the respect with which you talk to and about me. In the simple acts of service you do for me, just because you know it's my love language.

I love you more now than I did a year ago or when we were first married because I see how great a daddy you are. Ella is so blessed you have you, not only as a daddy and playmate, but because you will be the standard with whom she compares young men as, one day, she starts to date. She will grow up seeing that you are a strong man, with strong faith who leads our family in the way of the Lord. I knew in high school, even, that you would be a fantastic dad one day; I think several people told you that. I'm so blessed to have seen that come to fruition and much more so that it has been with our daughter.

It still takes me aback at times that I was the woman you chose to marry and spend the rest of your life with- out of all the girls you could've picked. And to think we have a daughter together and a son on the way <3 There's no other person I'd rather grow old and raise a family with.

You are my wonderful man of a husband, best friend, father of my children, and the person I trust most in the world. I can't begin to tell or show you how much I love and respect you.

Thank you for being my everything and loving me so deeply in return. You are the epitome of the verse that instructs men to love their wives as Christ so loves his church.

I love you, Samuel.