This morning I enjoyed a skillet of Denver eggs at a local restaurant with my husband. It is our morning off together. In hopes of reconnecting, we chose a corner booth. Over coffee and orange juice, a pleasant conversation begins to flow. Like ocean waves, it ebbs and flows, but our conversation has more of a Midwestern focus: Wintery December.
December the busy month of concerts and services, a birthday and traditions. Already I see the early birds donning their Christmas lights. Already the Christmas music plays suggestively in the retail stores. Already I have tried to make the list of Christmas gifts I need to purchase. But for a moment on this overcast morning I stop to look into my husband’s brown eyes. We have seen a lot together.
Reaching out for his hand I feel callouses from the heavy weights he enjoys lifting. I can see a scar from the last home improvement project he attempted. His posture is relaxed and casual as we wait for our breakfast orders to be delivered. It is easy to ramble on about something, anything, especially when I have coffee, but I chose to stop and just look at him.
He has stood by me through three pregnancies and now we’re into the fourth. I couldn’t calculate how many times he has left the house at night to fetch some snack I couldn’t live without. He has gotten up many nights to help a sick child, because I vowed after the first year of sleepless nights nursing each child that it would be his turn. Unfair? Maybe but he lovingly attends to the children anyway.
As the warm skillets are placed on the little brown table before us, I happily pick up my fork. We are sharing another moment, one of many that have been, and one of many to come. No matter what, my heart is bound to his and his to mine.
I decided a long time ago that I don’t want to travel the world and leave him behind. No, this adventure was meant for us to journey together. That journey has been painted with teenager’s faces as we have worked together to let young people know that they matter. For countless Wednesday nights I have stood by his side, listened as he preached, and knelt at the altar next to a student.
I smile as we begin to eat together. It has been an adventure, one I am thankful I have agreed to hike with him upon. In all the ups and down, the curves and steep ravines there is One that has led us all the way…to this moment of eating eggs on a gray Monday morning in late November. Both Brad and I vowed to love God most of all and to promise to forgive one another. How many times? When I am mad it seems one time too many. It is the Holy Spirit who dwells within me, who chides my stubborn heart to remember the promise to stand with my man through good and bad times.
Little did I know that within the first 24 hours of saying “I do” I would want to recant my vows. Anger is a wild thing, but I have learned that love is greater. That God, who is love is greater still. Having him as the King of my heart has helped me to concede, to make amends, to work for peace. Have we lived a perfect life? No, but we have lived a blessed life. As I sit in this little corner booth, in this little locally owned restaurant with my little white mug of $.99 coffee, I think I am looking at the most handsome man I have ever seen.
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