Twenty-Five

A visit home to meet Mom and Dad. Fall 1989.

I was just using the pay phone that day. I had no idea making that call would change my life.

I’d recently left the quiet cornfields for the big city suburbs and was making my way in the world at a local newspaper as its lifestyle editor. He mistook me for someone else and, when he realized his error, decided that he would ask me out, testing the magic of his tailed tux and the twinkle in his blue eyes.

It worked.

I wasn't looking for love, but that’s what I found in the person of Robert George Nahrstadt, Jr.

What was supposed to be one date turned into daily phone calls, meals, and dates. Eleven months later, we married on a beautiful, 83 degree August 25th morning at the church I’d called home since I was carried into it 22 years before. 

The newlyweds, Aug. 25, 1990

Not many thought we’d beat the odds, but when you know, you know. And we both knew.

Bob is Jesus with skin on to me. He loves me unconditionally, personifies amazing grace, forgives quickly, and faithfully encourages and champions my gifts. He gives himself wholly and without reservation for my good and God's glory. Such consistent self-sacrifice is grace undeserved and I have struggled over the years to comprehend why he chose me. His love has buoyed me when I thought I would drown. I haven’t always been easy to live with, yet he has never wavered in his belief in me, in us, and in our Lord.

My humble, hard-working man quietly serves those around him. He doesn’t think he’s a leader because he defines leaders as those who have followers. He doesn’t see anybody lining up behind him because he hasn’t taken his eyes off the work to look for them. He stepped off the corporate ladder eleven years ago because he knew he’d heard God calling him to a different pursuit. He still wonders sometimes if that was his own voice he heard, but we both know it wasn’t, and I wouldn’t trade this life we have for anything this world has to offer.

When I told Bob that I didn’t want to have children, I thought it would be a deal breaker. It wasn't, and his unflinching love gave me the confidence to believe I could be a good parent.

Michael's high school graduation, May 28, 2013.

Bob loves our only son, Michael, with an intense fierceness. He began telling Michael as soon as he could understand that if God lined up all the boys in the whole wide world and told him he could choose any of them to be his son, he’d still choose him. He has modeled faith and love before him and believes he can do anything he sets his mind to. He has gone to great lengths to be part of his world so that a common language could give them a foundation for meaningful conversation on other topics.

His hair is more silver than blonde these days, but there's still a twinkle in his eyes when we greet each other at the end of the day. There's no one who compares to him.

Happy 25th Anniversary, Sweet Face. I’d do it all over again tomorrow.