OUR 22ND ANNIVERSARY -

Saturday, LH and I exchanged anniversary cards. It was our 22nd year together. (Really, only 21 years of actually living together.) 11 months and 2 weeks before our first anniversary, we actually moved in together. Yup, ours was a commuter marriage for the first year. Not something I recommend to couples at pre-marital counseling. Not something I would want to repeat.
But, here, 22 years later, we are living apart again. Only this time, we're only an hour away, instead of 8 hours, and only 50.4 miles instead of 400 miles.
I miss LH. I miss not being home even at the end of a very long day. I miss not falling into bed and knowing he is there. I miss not having dinner together, even if it was only 3 nights in one week with all of our many meetings. I miss the Boys.
Even though LH is often in the den on the computer, while I'm in the family room with the greys, we are still together.
Perhaps, this time apart after 22 years, will refresh our relationship. Maybe, we will appreciate one another more and realize more fully what we mean to one another, and come to know all that the other did to keep the household intact and running smoothly and semi-cleanly.
I pray that the year will go by quickly - although I know one should never wish away time. Time, after all is so very precious and it goes by in the blink of an eye. There are so many who wish they had more time. So, I know I ought not to wish it away, but still...the year ahead seems to stretch interiminally before me. I will have to be content with the way that this time, this year will unfold.
The sacrifices of ministry are many. It's hard enough never to spend Christmas, or Easter or most any holiday with family who aren't living right around the corner. I haven't spent a Christmas with my family in 25 years. It's even harder, when you can't even go home at night to be with your spouse. There are times, when I ache for what I have given up as a minister.
I only have begun to feel this in the last year, as though, turning 50, brings to mind that the majority of my life has been spent and there remains much less before me. I'm beginning to feel that should I be fortunate enough to retire one day, I will really retire - no Presbytery meetings, serving on committees, supply preaching unless I really felt like it, etc. Just volunteering for mission - like delivering Meals On Wheels and the like. I hope that God will bless me with a time of "retirement" to spend time with LH and family and doing those things for which I never had the time or energy.
In the meanwhile, Advent beckons and with it the things that need tending and doing. It is afterall, that time.