Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Reasons I Love My Husband

I have to steal Top Ten Tuesday’s host, Amanda‘s, topic this week. It’s so easy when you’ve been married a gazillion years to take each other for granted, to get bogged down in the daily grind and forget what makes your marriage special. I appreciate the opportunity to stop and focus on the good things about the husband God gave me.

1. He puts up with me. I know, you all think I’m just this sweet, easy-going, lovely person (HA!) but nobody, and I mean nobody, sees all my warts, weathers all my moods and still loves me unconditionally like my Donnie. Somebody — give the man a trophy!

2. He proofreads my column every week and tells me it’s good, even on those weeks I know I’m submitting something mediocre because I didn’t have time to polish it.

3. He almost always says “yes” when I ask if I can pick on him in my writing, and doesn’t get offended.

4. He changes dirty diapers, and always has, even though each time, he’d probably prefer to have an unmedicated root canal.

5. He keeps up with my blog stats (I forget to) and Googles my name, then calls to tell me how “famous” I am and where I rank alongside Michael Apted when he searches our last name. He is my biggest cheerleader.

6. He loves his family. Everything he does is for us.

7. I can’t elaborate much about his job, but he has always worked hard to take care of us. I have never had to worry about having a husband who won’t work, or who skips from job to job. He’s willing to put up with a lot sometimes, to give us that stability.

8. He acknowledges that all good things come from the Lord, and that he is just a steward of what he’s been blessed with.

9. Three of my favorite memories will always be the look of purest love in his eyes as he held each of his newborn sons and we marveled together over the gifts we’d been given.

10. His hands. They are big, strong, beautiful, manly man-hands. I love the way his hand feels in mine. I remember being in church a few weeks after he deployed to Iraq, being asked to hold hands with and pray for the person beside us. The man next to me grabbed my hand, and his felt bony, damp and weak. And I started crying because I missed my husband. I missed the strength I always felt when I held his hand. I still feel that strength — I love that I can trust it will be there for me, always.