Happy Birthday to My Husband!

I met him when he was 19 years old, a confident college junior with plans to attend law school and practice constitutional law. A dreamer wanting to change the world.

Today he turns 45, has been practicing law for twenty years, and after nineteen years of pro bono constitutional work, his favorite branch of the law is now his full-time job. And he still wants to change the world.

His hair is graying a bit—and thinning—though he won’t admit to either. He’s battled eye issues for a year and isn’t as fit as he knows he should be. But he’s a more sensitive and compassionate man than that brash 19-year-old. He loves the Lord and his family more deeply than ever. And he serves others with joy and without complaint.

Happy birthday to my sweet husband. I look forward to many, many more years of loving you.

Living the Dream

My husband has always been a far-seeing man. When I met him, he was nineteen. Unlike most college students, he wasn’t living for the next day or the next party. He was living for forty. The perfect age, he told me. You’ve paid off your education and are seasoned in your career. You have a family and a house. Life is good at forty, he told me.

And he was right. Almost.

In spite of reaching those goals for forty that he set way back at eighteen (or earlier), he wasn’t quite living his dream. Two years later, he thought he’d found it, entering into a partnership with a godly man and a great lawyer. For two years we've loved that situation, one he had envisioned long ago that combined Christian lawyers and good legal work. Even so, something still niggled at him. A new judicial seat was created in the area. A public servant. Not his ultimate dream, but something that had always appealed to him. So he pursued it, even knowing it was a bit of a long-shot. And then the unexpected happened.

Out of the blue, he was offered his dream job.

What, might you ask with bated breath, could that possibly be? When my husband made his plans for law school all those years ago, his dream was to practice Constitutional law. Of course as time passed, he realized that such a career doesn’t often pay the bills, especially student loans that covered a private college education and a private law school education. So he plunged into the world of business litigation. He enjoyed it and he was good at it. But on the side he indulged his true love, using his pro bono hours to write letters and briefs and argue cases for causes of religious liberty. And he loved it. He felt he was using his talents in the service of the Lord and others.

As of today, he takes the helm of legal activities at the Liberty Institute. He will get to live his dream—practicing Constitutional law on a daily basis. It’s quite a shift, going from private practice to working for a non-profit entity. But we are so proud of him and so excited for his new adventure, even if we are sobered by the thoughts that he is moving to the front lines of a huge spiritual battle. 

Sometimes you really do get to live that dream that the Lord has dropped into your heart, even if it takes a few years longer than you imagined.