My Father's Gift

This picture is fifteen years old. Today is my fortieth birthday. Forty years ago I was born on an Army base in Texas. Fifteen years ago my marriage was born again.
Dean and I married when I was nineteen. Three years later we had two babies, no money and a very troubled home. We fought and turned all the stress and immaturity on each other like weapons and our wounds were deep.
We took turns being the one to want out and the one to hold on. God did a work in my heart that took over a year as he turned me back toward my husband and healed the scars in my spirit. Once I was healed I looked at Dean to find he had given up entirely. For over a year he tolerated our marriage for the sake of our boys even as he bluntly informed me he was leaving. For over a year I tried with tears and desperation to be a wife no man would walk out on. I succeeded and failed in equal measure.
During that year Dean told me he no longer loved and would no longer lie that he did. Every day I told him I loved him and he stared back at me silently.
On April 24 he left for work, afternoon shift at the factory. The guy he usually worked with wasn't there, Dean had never met his replacement.
This stranger asked Dean how he was and my husband informed him, not too well. You see, Dean had decided that at the end of his shift he was packing up and leaving for good. The mystery man told Dean he didn't accept that and asked if he could pray. Dean shrugged, he didn't care. The decision was made.
For eight hours this man prayed. Literally eight hours out loud. He reclaimed our home and rebuked every demon in hell dispatched to destroy what God intended in our lives. He painted a picture for Dean of the throne of God descending, each leg making up the four corners of our house and our home nestled beneath the throne of God. Eventually Dean, broken and desperate started praying too.
He came home that morning, April 25, 1992, on my twenty fifth birthday. The day he intended to finally destroy us. In that dark early morning he crawled into our bed where I laid still and quiet, pretending to sleep; dreading the conversation.
He put his hand on my shoulder, this itself unusual in our cold relationship. "Hey, I need to tell you something." His voice was gentle and my stomach knotted.
"I love you."
These words I hadn't heard in over a year. I laid silently still, not sure what was happening. Afraid and distrusting and hopeful all at once. This thing I had prayed for was happening and I had to reach out to receive it even if I would be humiliated again.
Dean told me about this man, about the praying for eight hours and the throne of God resting over our house. He told me about his heart breaking and mending all in one night as I slept.
On April 25, 1992 God gave me my husband's heart for a birthday gift.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.