This Man

This man.
I just don't have the words to express how much I love him, and even moreso,  how much he loves me.

He loves me by digging post holes by hand, because we have to do it that way right now.  It's the only way it can get done, so he does it, even when it exhausts him.
He loves me by telling me to rest, to keep off my bad knee, though a lot of times I don't listen to him, and then he loves me enough to realize I'm stubborn and really like to work beside him.
I don't do as much.  I paint the fence posts with tar, or hold a post he's trying to position or balance one while he makes the hole deeper.
He never asks me to push myself, and it makes me want to more.

He worries about our future, my future.  He works hard in the now.  He worries about my health, and I worry about his.  We try to better our health together, and sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we have an extra slice of pie together.

I can't imagine my life without him.  I don't have to...I already lived too many years without him prior to our ever meeting, and I don't want to go back.
I love that he always showers before bed...always.  He loves getting grimy and sweaty and using his physical strength.  And then he loves to get clean and relax.
He usually loves my cooking.  And I love to share that with him, and so many other things.  Countless things that are just him, and that have, this past 9 years, become us.

We looked at the tomato seed packets that arrived in the mail, gleefully.  We could almost taste the little multicolored cherry tomatoes in our minds.  He was as excited as I was...sugarplums dancing our our heads.  Sugarplums that can be planted, nurtured, watched, and if reaching maturity, eaten...and then the seeds saved for future plantings.  Dancing in our imaginations and in our future reality.

That prostrate plant is the wild muscadine that has fruit all over it

 I was in the ER this weekend, and that was unexpected.  I'm not an ER person, so this was a last resort.  We have no idea what expenses will arise as a result -- I am uninsured.  When I stabilized, I chose to leave and to try some followup through my own doctor.  We did check into the Obamacare insurance.  If we signed up today, it would not cover us until early February, so those decisions will have to wait a few days till  we get more facts.

Any trip to the ER jeopardizes our ability to get safe, to get to the land.  Getting to the land is what we equate with some level of safety both financially and practically.  Those who do not think like us will not understand, will not understand why we have to keep trying to do it, to make that happen.  They will not understand our choices, what we go without, what we keep in place, why we carve any spare time up with trips an hour away to do a few hours work, mostly Jack's own labor, to inch-by-inch Make A Place.

We need to finish the fence.  That's a huge project, because it's all on Jack.  It's being done by hand.  Then we need to do some  more clearing, dig a well, put up a panel and have a temporary pole (electric) run, then buy a used trailer.  At that point, we're IN.  We NEED to be IN.  After IN is dig out a cow pond, put calves on the acreage, get bees, plant trees, field plants, medicinals, and...so on, with joy in each step.  But getting IN, that is the priority.

I'm praying for a tractor.  As impractical as it might seem to pray for one out of the blue, too bad...it's the one piece of equipment that seems to be most needed in various capacities.  One which we cannot afford to buy even used, but can be prayed about nonetheless.  God tells us to ask for what we need, and I look at my husband, his ability and his age and the fact I don't want him to become injured, and I ask for a tractor.  I'm used to being redirected in my requests if they are not wise or timely.  And we're both used to working instead of waiting around for golden sunbeams and pixie dust.  But God has answered so many of our prayers in ways that exceeded our expectations, and He is our true father.

I pray that I will be ok, that He grants me and also grants Jack the wisdom to know what health actions to take, what tests to agree to have run, to  know when it's ok to forgo them and just live the best we know how.

I do not want to break the bank, to risk our future, to put more financial burdens on Jack.  He works for my future...I work for his.  I feel  he carries the lion's share, and now he's a little scared after that ER visit.  He wants me around, and I want him to live beyond beyond. 

This man, he is my heart, he is my miracle from YHVH's hand.

Every one of these posts that are now in the ground are not just the beginnings of a fence.  They are acts of love.  With every shovelful of sand and grubbing hoe severing a root system, it's "I love you."

I pray that this refuge he cherishes for our future and willed to existence through prayer and sweat and sore muscles...and laughter and shared wonder and blue skies and endless loads of supplies and tools...I pray that it comes to be.  Because it is the desire of his heart.  I am the desire of his heart, and I am humbled, daily.  I am in love with this man and life with him.  I thank God daily for the miracle, and I close my ears to anyone who does not understand it enough to be happy with our endeavor...this love I may never have had and may never have had to give were it not for God's mercy and goodness to me, to us.

I need for those who understand to pray for my husband's success and blessings to pour upon him.  He is truly a friend of the Almighty.  And he is my beloved.

YHVH hasten all Your blessings upon this man.  Your man.  My man.  My very heart.