How he loves: to my valentine

It's Valentine's Eve, and I've been thinking about my Valentine.

The way he first pursued me and the way he still pursues me in a hundred tiny ways.

Ways that could be missed if I didn't choose to take note, give thanks, and continue to learn how his heart speaks to mine.

He gives and he serves.  He protects and he guides.

His 'I love you' doesn't always look like mine.  Sometimes it's even hard to recognize in the context of my own preconceived notions of how love should be expressed.

But it's there and it's real.  So, so real.

I'm thankful for the real stuff.  The kind that stretches and pulls and shapes you into a better person then you were before.

I want to start compiling all these stories and examples of what love looks like in a marriage.  Things to share with our children.  The beautiful and powerful stuff.  The vulnerable and challenging stuff.  The wide open way God takes the selfish and ugly parts and uses this other person to hurdle each other toward the cross.  To look at the example of Christ and see that He is the way this kind of love all works out.  Learning to give mercy and grace and to receive it even more, transforms and unites more than I could have ever imagined.  What a gift that is.

There's a particular memory that's been on repeat in my mind a lot lately.  Gearing up for birth number two, it's a memory that makes me smile and washes me in peace.  It steadies me for what's to come.  It makes me send up just another infinite prayer of thanks for this man who is my husband.

The plan was for him to be the one to catch our first child.  To be the first to place hands on this new life we created.   But by the final hour of pushing, I was exhausted.  Beyond exhausted, I was spent.  I felt like everything I had was already given, yet no child had emerged.  Without thinking he climbed up on the bed behind me, this protective shell with strength to lend me.  He literally held me up, curled me into each push.  And looking over my shoulder, we both watched our firstborn enter this world.  Different plans, different perspectives, becoming one.  The same view.  That’s what we do.  Never a so opposite two, but looking, moving, working, and loving in the same direction. 

Happy Valentine's Day