Because...Love.

   

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” {1 Corinthians 13:6-7}


It's the "witching hour"; boys running wild, someone is stomping, someone is yelling, swords are slinging and some object just flew past my head. In just a moment, someone will be crying. As I empty the dishwasher, only to prepare to fill it again, I look over.

 Him. My man. My best friend sits there. He's staring at me. Big boyish grin on his sweet face. This face I have loved looking at for eighteen years. "I love you.", He whispers. 

I smile wide. "I love you too." 

Just like that, I am undone. Even in the chaos of the moment, my hair wild, my clothes worked from the day's events. He loves me just for being me, for my love. 

I look around. Dishes are piled from dinner. There are cars, stuffed animals and always a Lego strewn about. A lone sock lays on a stool. Papers and markers and crayons are spread across the table where I haven't had a chance to wipe the dinner crumbs. Oh! The crumbs! Little boy artwork is taped on the wall, pictures of stick figures and hearts and letters to represent our little family. Robots, ninjas, and hearts. 

And my heart just about bursts open, again. This is the good life. 

This is our love story. All the days.

Each year, love unravels simple, quiet, beauty. And I fall harder.

We met as kids. Just kids. Clueless, feeling our way through classes, grades, friends, sports and found each other again and again. The day he finally approached me, I will never forget it. "Can I call you sometime?" 

Yes.

The day I became his girlfriend. 

Yes. 

The day he asked me to be his wife. 

Yes. 

I remember his eyes. Always the same deep brown pools of mystery, mischief and pure kindness. 

And it's simple really. 

We love each other. 

We forgive each other. 

We pray for each other. 

We do for each other. 

We protect each other. 

Again and again. Yes to love. For always. 

"There is love that swells the heart so full it splits and leaks an aching joy." -A. Voskamp

  

All My Love.

My husband has been my best friend for eighteen years. We were just kids when we started dating. Kids in high school, living with our parents.

All these years later; graduation, jobs, a cramped apartment, junk cars, debt, marriage, job losses, mortgages, bills, loved ones lost, new friends, eliminating debt, illness, gain, old friends, home remodeling, vacations, salvation, infertility, celebrations, twin boys, parenting, surprise baby boy, parenting!, toddlers, potty training, preschoolers, and so many birthdays later,

he's still my very best friend.

We've spent a little over half our lives together. We've been up and down and down and up. And through it all, love remains.

I am grateful to be his wife. He holds my heart.

Happy Valentines Day, babe.

 

 

 

Love Letters.

 

I just finished reading the most amazing "love letter" written by my husband to me. It's two sentences hand-written on a 3x4inch piece of scrap paper. I think these words are the most special he has ever, in all our 17 years together, told me. I will truly cherish them forever.
...

I have another Valentine, written by another man.....my Heavenly Father.
Sweet, life-sustaining God-breathed words;

John 15
⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

Psalm 36 

⁵ Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
⁷ How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ They feast on the abundance of your house;
you give them drink from your river of delights.
⁹ For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

.....

 

And there's so much more, just skim your Bible, they're there, all throughout!

 

The sweetest reminders that I am (we are!) cherished, loved, and covered.

 

It is the perfect day to be reminded that no matter what human love is or isn't in your life, there is God-love. The greatest and strongest love there is.

 

....

 

I just finished writing my own love letters. To my husband and my children. Each one reminding them not only how I love them, but why. Even though my little ones can't read yet. I pray these letters make it through the years; that one day, just when they need it, they will find them and be reminded of the love I have for them, now and forever more. But even more than that, God loves them and created them each for a special purpose.

 

I pray that if nothing else, my life reminds them (all my loved ones) of that very fact.

 

Happy Valentine's day friends!

 

Until next time.