Day 3,178

The Conley Quarantine: Day 53

Happy 30th  birthday to Daddy!

His twenties were an entire lifetime of change. An eternity, actually. I first met Adam a year after I had become a Christian, when he was a 19-year-old, unsaved, alcoholic collegiate baseball player. An absolute wreck of a man (boy? guy?). He was chasing after this world with unmatched intensity. Truly. Not long after meeting him, he was confronted with the gospel. And as hard as he was chasing after this world then, his focus turned toward Christ, and his pursuit has never stopped gaining momentum. Again, with an intensity so serious and so strong. After ten years of loving Jesus the most, this picture is clear testimony to the radical kindness, mercy, patience, and grace Adam has received from the Lord. I can’t fathom anything on this earth more beautiful or special. What a treasure they are. And what a gift He is. 

Yesterday was mostly much of the same. 

You know, typical 30-year-old, quarantine-Dad-life stuff. 

But the evening, that was anything but typical. 

We dropped these adorable little things off at Grandma’s and Hannah’s house. 

We knew for sure, they’d have the best time. 

We said farewell. 



And went on a THREE(!!!) hour date with some of our dearest friends. It was the perfect way to enter this next decade of life—far better than we deserve. As our friend said last night, it’s so much easier to look ahead when we’re able to so clearly look behind and see the Lord’s hand and His faithfulness proving itself over and over again. To recognize where we were prior to salvation just ten years ago, and all He’s done to bring us to today, knowing we never could’ve gotten here otherwise. It encouraged my gratitude and love for our God, and deepened my love and loyalty to my husband. What an incredibly sweet decade of life I’ve gotten to experience with Adam. He cares for me and loves me with a love I know is not his own, and I never would’ve believed it were possible—except I know it is—only through Jesus. This man, I pray, is a testimony to Bearett of the kind of man he will be toward his wife one day, and the example of the kind of husband our girls will end up marrying. If only they could know how beautiful a marriage can be when both husband and wife are surrendered to Christ—the joy together that cannot be hindered due to circumstance. Prayerfully, that’s what this next ten years, among other things, will display clearly to them. 

One of my many favorite lines of lyrics says,

“I swore I knew the way on my own

Head full of rocks a heart made of stone

But Spirit you moved in me.”

I think of both Adam and myself prior to coming to faith in Christ and sing this as if the words were my own. 

“At your touch my sleeping spirit was awakened 

On my darkened heart the light of Christ has shone

Called into a kingdom that can not be shaken

Heaven’s citizen by grace and grace alone.”

I think of Ephesians 2:1-10 when I sing those lyrics:

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 

2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 

3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 

5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 

6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 

7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 

9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

What unfathomable kindness, grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy we’ve been shown. Looking back on these last ten years of Adam’s faithfulness in my life makes my eyes well up with tears of gratitude. He’s such a testimony to my heart of the mighty work of God and I’m endlessly grateful that he’s the one I get to spend all his years with. Scandalous kindness. Thank you, my God, for letting me come alongside a life and love so committed and surrendered to You. You’ve done it all. 

Happy 30th birthday to the man I love to love. 

You are my life’s greatest treasure.