Wade

My girlfriend Heather is mother to twins, and has found great companionship in the online community of Mums of multiples. Her latest post tells of an online friend, Snickollet, who lost her husband to cancer two days ago. He was diagnosed a month after they were married. They are parents to nine month old twins, who will now never know their Dad.

This blog is about my girls and my experiences as a Mum, but I realized that as I looked at my blog today there is not much mention of Wade, without whom I would not be a Mum, nor would I be who I am.

So, in honour of a woman who wakes today without her husband, I offer you a tribute to my own:

My husband Wade is the finest man I have ever known, and I know a lot of fine men, including the one who raised me. Wade is an original. There is no one like him. He is fiercely loyal, loving, creative, hilarious, intense, encouraging, adoring and wise.

The way he loves me has changed me. When we fell in love he spoke the truth of God about who I was over me and changed my perception of forgiveness, redemption and who I was in the eyes of God. He is my greatest champion. He has drawn out of me my talents and gifts, and gives me inspiration to try new things. His ability to find an interest, research it, learn it, then dominate it and make it his own (beermaking, spinning fire, laptop techno, making luxury soap, fusion cooking & BBQ) still leaves me in awe and aware of my own tendency to give up, or not even try - yet never leaves me felling inadequate.

Wade gave me my daughters. In a world where so many women do not know their worth, their possibilities, their opportunities and their value in the eyes of God, I REJOICE that just by knowing their Father, my daughters will know these things.

Wade still thinks I'm hot, even though I know I'm seriously changed from 10 years ago, especially after two kids. He still enthusiastically and unashamedly introduces me as "my foxy wife Joanna" in front of the most conservative audiences. The way he loves me and what he brings out in me teaches others about the way a man should love a woman. There is more than one female friend of ours that has proclaimed him the gold standard of men, and I agree.

Wade has no patience for fools, especially fools when it comes to love. My first inclination is to say I pity the men who try to court Kelsi, Sarah, JoJo, Zoe, Micah, Grace, Jaime, Sophia and Eleanor, but really if distance and time enabled it, they would be blessed men if Wade was able to school them in how to love his nieces, goddaughters and daughters.

I do not deserve my husband Wade, just as none of us really "deserves" any great love. I am who I am because of him, and I am aware of the mercy of God on me because of the gift He gave me in Wade.

I love you Wade, I adore you. Besides following Jesus, marrying you was the very best thing I ever did. May my life be worthy of the love you give me.

photograph courtesy of Sandra Vander Schaaf Photography.
copyright 2007 not to be used without permission