A love letter

Dear Blog readers, friends, and others,

Its been a wonderful journey that I’ve (we’ve) been on this past year. I know a lot of you read this to live vicariously through me. Not sure if this ride for you has been an upper or a downer. But even through the rough patches, I’ve had a continuous joy. I hope that has been an inspiration to you. I think that is my calling in life to be an inspiration to others to help them maximize their God-given abilities. So as you have traveled through my heartbreak and frustrations, now we are on the emotional good side. God’s faithfulness is really shining through my life right now and Im ecstatic. Since I share so much with you already, I thought you might want to read a love letter I just wrote to Jenni. (I asked her permission.) Be forewarned…its pretty sickeningly sweet. If you are not romantic it may cause you to throw up in your mouth a little bit.


Jenni,

I am sitting in Fuddrucker's right now eating lunch and watching the Oscar nominated short films from 2007. It's hard for me to describe the high that I am on right now. I can just describe it as bliss. Its all because of you Jenni my darling. I am so in love with you. I feel a little bit foolish with writing that Annulment paper and how it made me feel, longing for the family of yesterday. I have realized a great many thing about myself and my relationships over the past few years you see. God knows my heart and he knows the heart of my former spouse. I know God knew that the divorce was coming even though it blind-sided me. God could see into my future and he was protecting me. My year in Saudi was preparation to live life alone for a few years while I redefined myself in Him. I was to get my esteem from God and no one else. I learned to live alone and be completely reliant upon God’s grace. Because I had a year to prepare by being alone I learned to adapt. If she just would have left or filed while we still lived together it would have been absolutely devastating, I probably would have needed depression meds or something. While it was still incredibly painful, I endured as you endured. But because I was so spiritually ready for it, it knocked me over but didn't split me in two. We talked about what kind of tree we would be. I think God has designed me to be a Palm tree. The Palm can withstand any Hurricane. It will bend in torrential winds that would snap normal trees in half, but the Palm rarely breaks because they are designed to withstand any storm. So I withstood the storm, by the grace of God. While Im not perfect and I've made mistakes through the divorce process, I think I went through it exactly as God would have wanted me to. God is honoring my faithfulness Jenni by bringing you into my life. I honestly think, there just is no one in the world more perfect for me than you. God knew this. We met at the exact right time in the exact right place. You are being used of God in my life. That is a wonderful feeling to be used of God. You should get used to it. It is like you are the great reward for my faithfulness. If everyone knew they would get a “jenni” at the end of their personal “Hell” I think we’d get a lot more people signing up for it. But I think that’s the thing. We all go through our personal “hells” and our reward is just as satisfying as getting a “jenni” I think God custom makes our rewards to suit our tastes. Im just glad God knew that I had exquisite taste in you. I think many will see you as evidence as God's faithfulness. I stayed faithful through the storm and look at what I got as a reward, the most beautiful, intelligent, funny, sassy, and sexy girl in all the world. Its still hard for me to fathom how a guy like me could I merit a girl like you but only by grace of God. In fact, you are living proof that God exists. Its just such a strange sensation to be in love with someone I have never even met in the flesh before. I know I am romantic and a poet at heart. But how is it possible that each of us could fall in love before we even saw each other on the web camera. Then as soon as we did, the sparks flew. I knew at that moment you’d be my wife someday. Its really romantic if you ponder it. In the future, I think we are both going to have ministries to the divorced and broken hearted. We will use each other as examples to other's to keep the faith and to not give up. Because we found each other, they will receive hope through us. Jenni you and I are the modern love story. Broken hearted people finding each other through the new medium of cyberspace and discovering love that once seemed so improbably if not impossible. I have a bottle full of tears that God has saved and so do you. He counted all of our tears and stored them. Each tear will equate to a thousand moments of joy. I have about 10,000 tears I figure, and you must have about 8,000 (Im older) so I figure that will equate to a lifetime of joy for us. Get ready...for a fabulous life.

I love you sweetheart,

Rick