Seventy years
of grace.

Seventy years the Lord has given, and forty I have shared with you— ordinary days made beautiful by love that has stayed true.

Like Ruth, you know the quiet strength of saying, I will stay— through changing years and heavy loads, through work that drew my hours away, through paths whose end we could not see, you walked beside me faithfully.

You watch the pathways of our home like that wise woman long ago: the doors, the needs, the things unseen, the thousand threads that hold a family close.

As Sarah and Joshua grew, you would not let affection drift into the distance of good intentions.

You gathered us.

You planned the meals, remembered the days, prepared the place, and turned a gathering into a memory.

And now there are Hope and Lilly— two precious lives to cherish, two more reasons to plan the day so lovingly that childhood will remember:

Nana made this special.

Long ago, when we were young, I sang these words to you:

“I have a lovely wife, she’s the flower of my life…”

How fitting they seem now, after all these years—

for you have filled our home with beauty and tended living things with joy, watching over the flowers of your garden with the same patient care you give to those you love.

And somehow even the creatures know.

Like Rebekah drawing water beyond what anyone had asked, you care for the creatures that find their way to you— the small, the helpless, the hungry— as though the God who made them had quietly sent them to your door.

And Shiloh, so dearly loved, rests now in our backyard, still held in the tenderness of your remembering.

You have loved the people of Israel, stood faithfully beside Jewish friends, and carried them in prayer— like Ruth in her devotion, like Paul in his deep longing for the people from whom Messiah came.

And prayer—

how much of these forty years has been upheld by prayers I never heard?

Like Anna in the Temple, you have kept your heart turned toward the Lord— not for a passing season, but through the changing decades.

Year after year: Bible open, heart awake, names remembered before God.

You opened our home and made it more than ours.

Like Mary’s house in Jerusalem, where believers gathered and prayed, our rooms became a place for Scripture, friendship, questions, tears, and voices lifted together to the Lord.

And when suffering seemed far away, you brought it near.

A persecuted believer, a frightened family, a suffering church whose prayers we cannot hear— you would remind us,

We need to pray.

And people half a world away were no longer strangers.

Like Tabitha, you do not merely notice sorrow.

You act.

A need becomes a meal, a concern becomes a phone call, a lonely person becomes a friend.

And those who live around us are never merely faces glimpsed along the street.

You know their names. You stop and speak. You take an interest.

In these small, faithful kindnesses, the great commandment finds its everyday expression:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

For you, a neighbor is someone worth knowing.

And then there is the gift I know better than anyone—

your patience with me.

My calling has carried me into books and numbers, ancient years and sacred texts, into long hours when the work became a world of its own.

You know the cost of those hours. You have shared it.

Yet through the years you have stood beside me— patient, steady, keeping our life together warm and full of love.

Like Priscilla beside Aquila, you have shared in ministry through your own faith and service, and through quiet sacrifices no written page can fully tell.

I have traced the years of Scripture through decades of study; but these forty years beside you are the years I treasure most.

As mother and Nana, you remind me of Lois and Eunice— faith passed from one generation to another, not merely taught, but lived.

Sarah and Joshua, Hope and Lilly: names you hold before the Lord, lives you gather close.

You create the moments our grandchildren will remember, even before they understand the love that planned them.

And so, Kathy, at seventy, I do not chiefly count your years.

I count the people held together because you loved them.

Prayers whispered. Tables prepared. Doors opened. Flowers tended. Creatures cared for. Neighbors remembered. Children gathered. Grandchildren cherished.

A husband patiently loved. And Jesus faithfully followed.

Seventy candles cannot hold all the light your life has given.

It lives in those who know they are remembered, who know where home is, who know they are loved.

As Scripture says:

“Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also.”

Today I rise with them.

And I thank the Lord not only for all that you have done, but for the woman you are.

May the years ahead bring you fresh joy in Jesus, laughter around our table, flowers returning every spring, and love returned to you in countless gentle ways.

Happy birthday, Kathy.

Long ago I sang,

“She’s the flower of my life.”

After forty years, the words are dearer now than when I first sang them.

You are God’s gracious gift to our family, still my beloved, still my dearest friend.