"Why did you ask me out?"
"What did you think about me the first time you saw me?"
"When did you know that you loved me?"
He hates them; as a result, often the answers I get when I ask them anyway are sarcastic, ornery, and truly a little mean. In his mind the answer is, "I married you. Isn't that enough!! You want me to build you an igloo??!!!"
Bless him.
Once in a blue moon, when the planets have aligned and one of those calendar dates is a mathematical anomaly that will never happen again in a hundred years, he answers the question seriously and then says, "Why did you marry me?"
I get to answer without hesitation.... "the strength of your character."
As a twenty something-year-old, I loved his individuality, his unapologetic, rebellious, sweet spirit who secretly is the most loyal, compassionate, devoted, man I have ever met. I liked that right was right and wrong was wrong and that he didn't make excuses or rationalizations about either. He didn't try to be perfect, although he is certain he is. And he made me laugh - his charming wit, his endless personality, his disarming confidence captivated me and my small town girl heart - and within weeks of our first date, I was unmistakably smitten.
Two kids later, with a house full of responsibility, his charm often walked me back from the ledge of dirty laundry and a stack full of bills. Dancing in the living room was free; the money we lost at family poker night never left the house, and my quest for perfection in house-keeping or parenting could always get lost when he wrapped me up in his arms.
At times, he would make me crazy.
"How do you not see that the dishes need to be put up? Why are your dirty clothes on the floor when I put the hamper on your side of the bed? Can't you see the bushes in the front are overgrown and need to be trimmed? Do I really need to ask you to do that?"
What I didn't know until the world ended in the middle of the night four years ago is that his quest for making family memories, his gift for being responsible about having fun, his devotion to family and loyalty to us and our dreams would save me from the darkness of the deep end of the ocean.
While our love story created two magnificent creatures, a son and a daughter, who light up our lives and transcend any expectation we could have ever had for a boy and girl, while it has had it's share of thrown remote controls and ruined dinners, of warm kisses at the base of my neck, of harsh words, inconsideration, and irresponsibility, while it has picked up and moved more often than it has stayed put - it didn't blink at the death of our first born.
His strength of character, his belief that I am his and he is mine, and his commitment to creating memories empowers us to meet the expectations of the responsibilities we hold, empowers us to meet today with and comparable spirit we held before the world ended.
....the strength of his character...
I didn't know what I was saying all those years ago when I answered his question -
but God did.
God knew I needed this good-timing, loyal, charming, sarcastic, handsome, loving man so that my heart wouldn't shrivel up and die when a drunk driver took the life of one of the greatest gifts I had ever been given.
God knew about the strength of this man's character, and I am thankful.
It isn't the love story I wrote - but it is written and living.
Ecclesiates 4:9-12
"two are better than one, because they have ag good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, But woe to I'm who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And thought a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him - a threefold cord Is not quickly broken."
#golighttheworld