10 years – 1 marriage – 2 daughters! It’s been a busy couple of weeks, in which Beverley and I have:

• welcomed a new baby daughter into the world! She was born by caesarean delivery weighing 9lb 6oz (4.3kg) and she and mum are doing well
• celebrated the 2nd birthday of our other daughter, who is now a sweet, strong-willed and vivacious toddler!
• marked our 10th wedding anniversary (which was a rather low-key celebration given we have a newborn!)

Here’s a video of my wedding speech as the groom 10 years ago (transcript here). The recording quality isn’t great (no smartphones with HD recording back then!) but I hope you can still enjoy it…

We’re very grateful to the Lord Jesus for how he has blessed us and fulfilled so many of our aspirations. We had hoped and expected to start a family a lot sooner (probably after two or three years of marriage). But difficulties in the area of intimacy meant that it took a lot longer (a long story for another time…) But having experienced the uncertainty and pain of having our hopes for family deferred now makes us all the more aware and grateful for what we now have.

It’s hard to convey the joys and trials of parenthood without descending into cliche or banality. The experience is both common (19 million families in the UK) and particular (the specificity of being married to this person, and parent to these children). But yes, it is incredible to hold that new life in my arms, a small wriggling bundle of human need and potential. I’m already struck by how much our second daughter is distinct from our first; although she comes from us, she is different again, totally herself with her own physicality and behaviour, and that will only become more evident as she grows and her own personality grows and becomes evident.

I remember seeing an Internet meme some years ago that suggested that the family was a very weird arrangement, because it basically means that you enter life randomly allotted to strangers and have to get on with them as best you can until you are an adult. It’s a very peculiarly individualistic view of what’s going on with family, as if we’re isolated individuals dropped off by stork with other isolated individuals. But the experience of parenthood gives lie to that: here’s a child whose existence has arisen out of the love between father and mother, who blends together their genes and characteristics, who is related both biologically and relationally to them and to a wider network of family and social relationships. (With adoption too, the commitment of welcoming in a child into the family works a far more fundamental change than “living with strangers”).

It’s also incredibly sweet to see our toddler taking so well to having a little sister. She takes an interest in seeing her, pats her gently, gives hugs (carefully supervised), tries to show her books and toys. We’ve had the repeated refrain of “Oooh, it’s baby!” from the toddler as she has been taken by surprise once again by the presence of her little sister.

It’s also very unifying for Bev and I to be working together on the joint project of parenthood. While we still have our moments of tension, we’ve had plenty of time to learn how to work well together, so we can support and look after one another with all the tiredness and hard work of caring for little ones.

Looking back at the photos of me and Bev from when we got married in our early twenties, I’m struck by just how young we really were. We didn’t particularly feel it at the time, but with the benefit of a few years’ hindsight, I realise just how little we really knew about the world, each other, and even ourselves.

But I’m incredibly grateful that we were able to make mistakes, grow up, expand our horizons and understand ourselves together. There’s a saying that “marrying in your twenties is a start-up; marrying in your thirties or later is a merger”. I’ve no doubt there are some advantages to waiting until you are more mature and self-aware before making a long-term commitment to someone else. But for all the difficult times and long hard struggles to work out life, I would have it no other way than doing it hand in hand with Beverley. I also know I wouldn’t be nearly the person I am today without her love, advice, correction and sometimes impatience (which was fully deserved on my part)!

So here’s to the next 10 years and beyond! I pray that our family wouldn’t exist simply for its own sake, but in God’s strength to be a source of life and joy to others.