I’m sure the blogsphere is humming today with many posts similar to this one. Many a blog-savvy amateur writer (like myself) will wax eloquent about his / her significant other on this day devoted to love, chocolate and a fat little cherub with a bow and arrow.

No matter. This marks my 11th Valentine’s Day with my beloved and I honestly can’t remember what life was like before we were together. She came into my life when I was 18 years old; in many ways, I’ve grown up with this girl by my side. We met at Friendship Christian School when we were in high school. Good ol’ FCS was (and is) a small Christian school in the cowfields of rural Lebanon, TN. I was a year older than Sunny (still am) and before we started dating, I “went out with” another young lady who shall remain nameless, although we never “went” anywhere (certainly not “out”) and if we ever did go anywhere, we certainly never went “with” each other. Thankfully, though, my involvement with this lass led me to one of the best decisions of my life: I enrolled in the FCS chorus for the second semester of my senior year.

Now, if you’ve known me for any length of time, you know a few things about me. One, I have no sense of smell. None. My nose is purely ornamental. Second, I love baseball. Seriously…it’s unhealthy for a grown man to love a game as much as I love baseball. And finally, I can’t sing. Not a lick. Don’t even know how to read sheet music. Not my spiritual gift.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why would a young man so bereft of vocal ability purposefully and willingly enroll in a class designed to showcase said vocal ability? All I can say is, you do crazy things when you’re in high school. This young lady convinced me to take chorus with her, and I followed suit. Smitten as I was with her, our relationship quickly soured, leaving me stuck on the back row of Mr. Herring’s choral classroom, looking like a chump.

But that’s when I began to notice this young blonde in the soprano section. As I said, my school was a small one and everybody knew everybody, but I tried my best to get to know this pretty girl with the beautiful voice. With a little help from our school lunch lady (I still owe you one, Mrs. Burroughs), I began striking up some conversation with her. Alas, our relationship was short lived, at least at first. Little did I know that Sunny already had a boyfriend, a fact she made me well aware of in a little conversation we had in the back of the chorus room.

Thinking she was already spoken for, I began to turn my attention elsewhere, only to find out that Sunny actually was beginning to take an interest in me. What can I say? When you’ve got it, you’ve got it, I guess. We talked some during February and March in chorus; we started talking a lot more come April, when we started practicing in earnest for FCS’s 1995 production of The Sound of Music, headlined by my good buddy Lane as Captain Von Trapp. Yours truly made his musical debut as Rolf. Seventeen goign on eighteen, baby. (Knocked ’em dead with my dance moves, too.)

By May, after months of laying the groundwork, I mustered up the courage to ask Sunny out. Our first date was my last day of high school (barely making us high-school sweethearts). I picked her up at the Mt. Juliet Little League park where her brother was playing and sprung for dinner at Wendy’s. We caught a dud of a movie, Forget Paris with Billy Crystal. I don’t remember much about the evening, except that I hated to see the night end. We began dating steadily over the course of the summer; on June 2nd, 1995, I asked her to wear my high school ring. We haven’t looked back.

11 years, 3 jobs, 2 babies and a minivan later, I’m still thankful for my girlfriend. Sunny, I never could’ve imagined what God was up to so many years ago when He brought us together. Other than Jesus, you are the greatest blessing of my life. Thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for teaching me how to be loved. And thank you for letting me love you.

Baby, You’re the Greatest!