Last week, my good friends Josh and Annie welcomed little Lisa Suzette into the world. 

I know Josh as the lucky man who married my college roommate. But you know Josh as a frequent commenter here on the blog and the man responsible for writing the most popular comment of all time (with a whopping 220 “likes”)!

I thought about that comment as I saw the first few photos from Lisa’s birth on Facebook, and with Josh and Annie's permission, I thought I’d share that comment with you once more.

In response to “Thou Shalt Not Let Thyself Go?” Josh wrote this:

My wife was beautiful when we started dating. Then, she lost some weight.—and was still beautiful.

Then, she took a stressful job and gained some of it back—and was still beautiful.

Then, we got engaged, and she was beautiful on our wedding day. Then we started to cook for each other, and we both got a little fatter.—and she was still beautiful.

A few months ago, we found out she was pregnant. She started putting on some weight as her baby-bump grew, and her hips widened, and her 'butt got more dimply' (as she puts it). And she is still SO beautiful. 

A few days ago, she was running late and didn't have time to dry her hair or put on makeup... And she was still beautiful.

When she feels frumpy, and wears her 'fat pants' (again, her words) so she can feel comfortable around the house, she is still beautiful. 

And once she has our baby, and still has extra baby fat, she will STILL be beautiful.

And when our baby is young, and she is bleary-eyed from nights with no sleep, and doesn't have the time or energy to dress up or put on makeup or shave her legs or pluck her eyebrows or any of the other things she spends time on in the morning, she will still be beautiful.

And as we age, and her boobs start to sag, and the stretch marks from multiple kids line her belly, and her skin wrinkles, and lines crease around her eyes and mouth, and her gray hairs start coming in faster than she can pull them out, and she starts to look...(dare I say it?)...old, she will still be beautiful.

She was, is, and always will be beautiful to me. And she will always be—in an objective sense—beautiful. This is because her life radiates beauty: through her hospitality to friends and strangers alike, through her joyful laugh, through her care of those in need, through her passion for education, through her love of framing things on film through the lens of a camera, through her ability to be patient with her doofus husband, through her genuine love for God, through her sacrificial generosity to those with less than we have, and even through her stubborn refusal to let me get away with any of my trademark snark.

These things, along with more that I cannot begin to list, make her beautiful. And I see that beauty in her eyes, her face, her shape, and the way she carries herself. And I see it in her laugh lines, her crows feet, her gray hairs, her one dimple on one cheek, her moles she thinks are funny-looking--in everything she thinks detracts from her beauty, I see nothing but beauty. 

I cannot help it. I love my wife. She is beautiful.

Any man who cannot see the beauty in his own wife either needs a new set of spectacles, or is no real man. Letting herself go? Hardly! It is the man who lets his love of the wife go, and in so doing, fails to see the beauty that is inevitably there.

Join me in offering a hearty congratulations to Josh and Annie!  We are so blessed to have them as part of our online community.