• I Love This Lady

    I’m hard pressed to find a photo these days of my wife not holding one of our children. So here she is, holding my beloved son, soaking in his gloriously soft baby skin.

    *     *     *     *

    Babe, as you go about your day today, just know that you are loved. There’s no way to tell you how grateful I am.

    We have our differences. Our visions don’t yet perfectly line up. Yet I am grateful. I have the privilege of knowing you. Of hearing your heart and sharing mine. Of connecting with someone who gets me on the most primal level, before all the intellectual arguments get in the way.

    On this special day, I am thinking of you. I’m thinking warm and cozy thoughts of you. I am satisfied that you are the partner I want and need. Differences be damned. I love you. I choose you now with more of my being than ever before. Even when I’m perplexed about my calling, my vision, and my purpose, I am secure knowing that I want to know you more, and I look forward to plumbing the depths of your heart’s desires and expressions.

    Knowing you has been the most anti-Pharisaical act of my life. Our relationship is the closest thing I have of a picture of what God must want with me. Our love is fun, engaging, and continually interesting. Whenever we do something off script, I revel in the fact that we’re not following the norm. Knowing you is real. It’s not a scripted process. It’s not a series of obligations that gets me what I want if I perform.

    I get what I want when I make myself vulnerable and available to you. And what I want is the vulnerable, unedited part of you. To know as I want to be known. Every time you share something core to your being, I feel as though you handed me riches beyond expectation. I feel rich. I am sated. The pleasure of knowing what others cannot know is inexplicable.

    Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for continuing to choose me. I miss you.