God has allowed many people to come and go in my life.  These people have impacted me in such a way that it has molded me into the person I am today.  One of these men in my life that God has blessed me with is my husband. 

I have heard many, many, MANY stories of his childhood from his family and from him.  Most of the stories are full of negative words and most of them end up in how much trouble he was in.  I know that there are children who face worse things than what he dealt with, but that doesn't mean that what he went through wasn't hard.  For more than a decade he struggled with anger due to issues from his childhood.  And then the anger would increase everytime he had to hear "that happend so long ago, you need to let it go." 

As soon as he could, he joined the military.  But the anger followed him.  He tried to ignore the issues that bothered him but when the memories came back, they would come back in full force and his anger would be out of control.

Over the past 10 years I have watched him transform into a completely different person.  Now, he is 33 years old.  He has looked the face of Anger in the eyes and fought back....and has won.  God has placed special people in his life to help him to learn to forgive.  And once he learned to fogive, pieces of the anger that surrounded his heart began to chip away.  It took years, but his heart is full of joy and peace. 

Yes, he is still opinionated, over-bearing, and gruff.  But that is his make-up.  He was specially hand-crafted by God himself.  Who knows, maybe one day he'll make a good politician.  But for now, he is simply a great man.  One of his great fears was not being a good father, and that in itself makes him a better father than even he could ever imagine. 

On December 16, 2011 we will mark our 11 year wedding anniversary.  Each anniversary that comes around reminds me of how special our marriage is and how hard we have worked to keep it going strong. 

From now on, Eric, I promise to focus on who you are now, and not who you were then.  You have definately earned it.