Love – Page 2

February 14, 2017

The Real Valentine (it’s not at CVS)

Woodside Cemetery

Like most Hallmark holidays, Valentine’s Day, a day that supposedly promotes love, has a high probability of doing the opposite. Ok maybe not promoting “hate” – how about just plain old anxiety/depression?

I’ve noticed a trend in health care over the last few years. When I review a patient’s history, there is frequently a diagnosis of “Anxiety/Depression”. I see it so often I shorten it to “Anx/Dep”. If it’s a trend in health care, then it’s worth noting. The world, at least in these parts, is unhappy.

Happiness is an unalienable right, or at least the pursuit of it. But it can be elusive, the Golden Carrot that we are all running the race for, right? Happiness may be tied to a promotion, our children, a trip to the Caribbean. But it’s here, then gone, like stardust. Like Valentine’s Day.

I am old enough to remember Valentine’s Day before the PC Squad took it over. You could actually go to school and get zero Valentine’s Day cards while your classmates were showered with love and Snoopy Valentines. I’m not saying that ever happened to me. I think I got one or two anyway.

This time of year is dark for me. The shadow of my son’s birthday looms just ahead, February 19^th, a silent day that I still don’t know what to do with, so I walk around in a fog, disoriented and moody. Years ago, the pain was crushing and I would gasp for breath. Nowadays it’s a familiar ache that reaches way down into the Mom place. I think it’s behind my heart. I could cry, but I’d rather do something Spence would like – tell someone about Jesus, love someone that needs it.

St. Valentine, so the story goes, had it kind of rough. Claudius, the emperor of Rome, felt that unmarried men would fight better, die better, if they weren’t tethered to sweethearts and those pesky kids so he decreed a ban on marriage. Valentine intervened, converting soldiers to Christianity before secretly marrying them. No box of chocolates – he was beaten, stoned then beheaded, on February 14^th,273 AD. And we pout if we get 6 roses instead of 12.

I’ve been trying to prepare a Bible study on Love for a group of female prisoners. I imagine “Anx/Dep” is pandemic in prisons. Love is a confusing concept, and so many have been abused, used and rejected under its banner. The problem is we can’t survive without it. God made us to love as much as we need breath.

I’m no expert on this topic. I am 60 and I still have to really focus on loving people the way Jesus wants me to. It’s just not natural – I want to step back and gently shut the door on them, turn and make some tea and be left alone with a good book. Spence had this uncanny sense of drawing towards those who were the most rejected. It was like Jesus was holding his hand and pointing the way to go, often obscure places no one else saw. It was not easy for him, a kid who was unbearably shy around people he really wished he could trust. When he was alone, he prayed for those he couldn’t get to personally. He didn’t get to see those prayers answered and he often mistook God’s silence for displeasure. Did I tell you he was stubborn too? That no matter how many times a mother tried to tell him he was loved, he argued. He got that from me. Maybe the stubborn part too. When I get to see him someday, I’d like to say, I told you so, but I doubt it will even come up.

When I look for Love, I look at Jesus. His love wasn’t some philosophical formula, or a flowery “Why can’t we all get along?” sermon. His love was sharp as a sword, His love made men put down their stones, His love was nailed to a cross. It was gritty, it was truth. His love was a glorious empty tomb.

Next to my son’s grave is a heart shaped stone, with a young woman buried beneath. On the stone is inscribed:

Do not stand by my grave and cry

I am not here, I did not die

I live with the risen Lord.

I love that, in fact it’s why I buried my son next to her, so I could read that as I stood looking at my son’s grave, trying to absorb the truth, that he was gone. Yes, he died and is no longer here, but he lives with the risen Lord. And out of the dust and disappointment of our lives, our failures, the Lord lives. He breathes life into death. He unwraps His children from the grave clothes of “Anxiety/ Depression”. He is Love eternal, unfailing, unchanging.

I’m going to make a Valentine’s Day pie for my Valentine, and tell my husband the same thing I tell him everyday – that I love him. He’s probably in the card aisle at CVS, like right now, grumbling that all the “good” cards are gone. Tomorrow, we will be a day older, and the country will be filled with half-eaten boxes of chocolates, mostly cream –filled. But no matter what you’re facing, Jesus has been there too. And He’s calling you to Him, “Come.” Come to a love that is unshakeable, unmovable.

The Apostle Paul, who lived long before Valentine, knew this love beyond what we can imagine; in prison, through shipwreck and beatings and being left for dead. It was a love he eventually gave his very life for, because he knew that true love is more than just a feeling, a poem or even a treasure chest of jewels. He said this:

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Now I know what I’ll say to the girls in jail tonight. That Love is here, with us right now. And nothing, not even prison bars, can keep Him from us. I know they will really love that. It may be the happiest Valentines Day ever!

I counted – there’s 12!

September 28, 2016

Vermont Odyssey

What’s going on here?

I slapped the new magnet to my fridge. It wasn’t easy finding a Vermont magnet with cows on it. My husband and I just returned from our anniversary trip up north, choosing Vermont this time. It’s well-known to C.B. but it’s been a good 40 years since I tripped and stumbled up and down the state. That was the era of candle making and earning degrees in macramé and Zen. Hippies have been replaced by capitalist boomers that love to throw around buzzwords like “sustainable” and “social justice” (just take a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream tour).

Part of the reason we go away together, just us, is because we need to sit across from each other and take a deep breath and say, “Hey there! What’s new?” It’s not like we can’t do that at home, but I find too often I am preoccupied with my world which bumps gently (usually) against C.B.’s world. We coexist graciously even setting aside time for date nights and walks on the beach, but we are distracted. Going away removes distractions.

I think this is why we find it easier to tell people about Jesus when we are away. We slow down, we notice a lone man sitting on a park bench in the dark. Or a gentleman crossing a parking lot. We take time to listen to two German tourists, both physicians.

Do you believe in God?

“I do,” said one, then she looked to the other.

“I don’t, “the young woman confessed — more with sorrow than defiance. She had been snared by dead religion growing up; rules and regulations. “Jesus is different,” I said, then encouraged her to seek the Truth, which is another name for Jesus. “You will need him if you’re caring for sick people.”

Whenever I tell people about Jesus, I like to say His name within the first sentence. It’s like bungee jumping. I’ve tried the more palatable God or dipping my toes in the water by saying Faith but it does not accomplish what Jesus can in a Nano-second. Things change. A countenance will fall, or curl up in anger, or sorrow or sometimes just surprise. Jesus? The name of Jesus changes things.

Inside our wedding bands, Jesus is Lord is engraved next to C.B and Robin. It’s been the junction of our lives, where we always meet, no matter how wildly apart we are. I thought, as we walked across his old college campus, that I would never have been interested in this man back then – the ski bum, the blond frat boy. And he would’ve sneered at the barefoot poet of the Lower East Side. But as life led us to the cross and the new life beyond, we found each other side by side, in a field of harvest, our hearts wrapped up in the wonder and awe of Jesus.

Like I said, I love to say His name, but it’s hard when a person rejects Jesus, or worse, mocks Him. It hurts. I guess that’s what love is all about. But when someone wants to know Jesus, like the man on the park bench and in the parking lot and we have the privilege of introducing Him, it is the best feeling this side of heaven. C.B. and I were like two kids at a carnival, made for this as much as we were made to love. Our souls are purged from all the cares of the world and redirected back towards Jesus – and each other. Funny how the two always line up.

Vermont is still beautiful although C.B said it felt different and he also wondered out loud where all the cows went. It’s true; there’s a lot of vacant pastures. He even asked the tour guide at Ben and Jerry’s and she jerked a little, surprised by the question, but she looked about 20, too young to remember the cows featured on the ice cream container. Later, an older woman with a British accent snuck up to us and leaning in asked,

“Do you think the cows are industrialized?” I smelled a Conspiracy theorist. My husband and I smiled at each other as we walked away. “You’re inciting a revolution,” I said.

People are precious, everywhere. It’s the God-Eyes you get when you share Jesus. They are sheep, scattered, without a shepherd, Jesus lamented. The Bible says He looked on them with compassion. All of them. That’s why I like to say, “Has anyone ever told you about the love of Jesus?”

Mostly people say, No. I’ve noticed that a lot of young people don’t even know who He is, speechless like the Ben and Jerry’s tour guide.

Turns out the cows are industrialized, herded into huge milk factories in northern Vermont where they can produce lots of milk for far less cost. I pictured a grotesque bovine apparition with bloodshot eyes and ginormous udders. I watch too many documentaries.

We inhaled deeply the mountain air, cool and robust, laced with balsam. The tips of the maples were splashed in red and gold like torches waving in the breeze.

Twenty nine years since Frat-Boy and the Barefoot Poet gave it all to Jesus – nineteen since we gave each other those rings at an altar. Love still burns, and burns brighter even, with each season of life. Jesus does that. Something about the name of Jesus.

John Wesley said, “Though we cannot think alike may we not love alike?” We can, when the love of God, in it’s pure unfiltered power, is poured into our hearts, setting in motion the divine expression of His grace. When a young woman asks me, usually in a roundabout way, how she can love her husband “better”, I tell her she needs to love Jesus better first. That will answer her question and will also start a fire too. Then you will want to pass the torch on to others. Now there’s a real revolution.

In a land where many people sense the shift beneath our feet and the unraveling of security, there is something about the name of Jesus; eternal light, solid rock.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17 KJV

This is one of my favorite oldies — enjoy!

May 5, 2015

A Mother’s Day KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

One of the best cards –

A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.

—Anna Jarvis

and inside…

Anna Jarvis. You probably don’t know the name, but during a memorial for her mother, Ann Jarvis, in 1905, she decided it was a great idea to honor your mother, so she campaigned and lobbied tirelessly to make it an official American holiday. Naively, she thought it would just be nice to write mom a letter of appreciation, or just say I love you. When Hallmark began selling Mothers Day cards in 1912, she got mad – so mad she tried to get Mother’s Day rescinded. She even got arrested at a carnation distributor’s plant in Philadelphia. America won out. There was, after all, a lot of profit to be made in this confusing holiday.

I remember my dad giving us five bucks to run to the corner store and buy a big box of chocolates for my mother. The funny thing is, she hated chocolate. The box lay open on the kitchen counter for days, and we nibbled on them like mice, leaving those gross jelly filled chocolates ripped open on display, like someone might come along and say, “Hey, that looks irresistible!” Maybe my dad…

The 21^st century Mother’s Day has morphed into a grotesque commercial blowout, like so many American holidays, plying shamelessly on the consumers guilt or gullibility. I read an article about a woman who went on a website for people who want to commit adultery – sort of like a Sleazeball.com – because her husband did not give her jewelry for Mother’s Day.

My husband feels bad for me on Mother’s Day because A) my own mom is alive but has no idea who I am or what Mother’s Day is and B) my sons are far away – two in North Carolina and one in heaven. He has offered to buy me things but I remind him that I am not his mother. This seems evident. And I am blessed 365 days a year by two wonderful sons and their wives.

My children have bought me little trinkets over the years, including a necklace I still own and wear each Mother’s Day, but they know that my most favorite gift is a card or letter, just sharing their hearts with me. I guess if you have daughters this is not so uncommon, but sons emerge emotionally on rare occasions, like the seventeen-year cicadas. I have saved some of the Best of the Best over the years, including a box of poster paint handprints and IOU’s for doing dishes, back rubs and five dollars. Who knows? I may need them someday.

When you lose a child, the holiday screams at you at first, then over the years it becomes another reminder that we are not complete. There is a quirkiness that comes with this type of loss. My own mother, who lost a child when she was 36, skipped Quirky and went right to Crazy for many years. It did level off into an odd type of neurosis; sort of a combo Anxiety mixed with Fatalism and Reclusiveness. She loved her kids reluctantly after that. Motherhood had become risky and unpredictable. When my older brother had to tell her that my son had died, she started beating him in the chest with her little bony fists, yelling No! No! No! I think she was saying No more for me than Spence.

My mother grew up in the upper echelon of Southern society, where table settings and debutante parties trumped family time. Her mother’s alcoholism was a secret she shoved into a full family closet, until she was old enough to run, and she did – all the way to New York City. My father offered every thing she did not have; security, sanity and a family that fit nicely into a big station wagon. When my brother Timmy died suddenly in 1964, her world imploded and she accepted a twisted lie as her truth – she was no better at mothering than her own mom. She retreated into a purgatory of fear and self-doubt.

I think that the thought of her own daughter carrying the same legacy caused her to spin out into a gale storm of anger and confusion after Spencer died. My brothers intercepted and kept her away for a time so she could heal and I could breathe. Then for just a few years before her first brain hemorrhage, we became friends, and I discovered a bond we shared. We had both buried a son. After decades of being at odds and circling each other with suspicion, we found a common ground; a place of such unimaginable pain and sorrow that to this day I can only share with other women who have also lost a child. Then the connection is immediate. Deep calls unto deep. And there I found my mother’s love.

Like mom, I am quirky too – but with one outstanding difference. The anchor for my soul that is in Jesus Christ holds me securely from busting loose into a dark abyss without gravity or bearing. Yet I know what that dark place is like and it causes me to stay close to Jesus and look upward, using heaven to navigate by. For that, for this “thorn in the side”, I am grateful. There is no better place to spend your life than in Christ. And in that place of pain, He has made a garden. All kinds of things grow there. It’s crazy – good crazy.

I think grief is the most pure form of love. My heart is heavy for those who are new to this journey, who are spending their first Mother’s Day without a child that should be there, but is gone …the footstep, the laughter, the goofy cards and the clumsy words from a heart that loves their mom. If you know one of these moms, the broken ones, give them the best gift of all; let them talk about their son or daughter, or tell them you miss them too. The fear that you might awaken sadness is ridiculous. It never sleeps, trust me.

Spring is here. For those of us that endured the Big Freeze of 2015, we are a little amazed that anything can grow but it’s no big deal for God. The fragile bud opens, the pale green leaf uncurls like a baby’s hand and stretches out into new life.

In the hospital where I work, they play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” overhead when a baby is born. When I tell patients and families what it means, it never fails to illicit an “Awwwww” and a smile, even among the sickest or grumpiest. Upstairs a young woman holds out her arms and a squirming, wet and bewildered infant is laid there. She is mom, whether she is Princess Kate or a heroin addict. God has just changed her forever. The cord is cut but the heart is sealed with the most powerful love on earth. For as the little life unfolds and blossoms and someday leaves her, she is Protector and Keeper of the nest. Her job is to hold, then let go.

Can I suggest that this Mother’s Day we return to the humble beginnings of this day? Men, use words. Ladies, just love your imperfect mom. She did the best she knew how to do. Life is ever changing and in an instant, she could be gone. In the spirit of the first mother’s day, just say I love you and lots of Thanks. It really beats a box of chocolates.

***Anna Jarvis died at 84 in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania, never taking a penny of profit for Mother’s Day. Although she was the 10^th of 13 children, 7 who died before she was born, she never married or became a mother. She insisted the day was Mother’s day, singular not plural, so that people would make an effort to honor their very own mom, in a personal way. Although she fought tirelessly to keep it simple and not commercial, she lost that battle. Like my own mom, she spent the last few years of her life with dementia and finally happy.

Being silly, just a few months before her second stroke. Love you mom!

October 22, 2014

The Victor’s Path

road_to_heaven Molly was my best friend, hands down. We met at Mrs. Krumick’s desk in third grade, as I watched her staple her thumb, then stare at it in disbelief while I waited for her to scream, but she didn’t. Molly was blond. Her mother was the only single parent I knew back then; a widow from Virginia with a funny accent like my mother’s, who worked as a nurse back when nurses wore hats and white everything. She married her husband’s brother, who we knew as Uncle John, but I always knew Molly’s mom didn’t love him, she just wanted him around, like a friend.

To me, friendship was essential, like owning a bike. Every time we moved, I canvassed the new neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking for friends. It seemed simple enough. You played; sometimes my house, sometimes theirs, or the wide-open world in between filled with playgrounds and bike rides and climbing trees. Then you went home to eat dinner. I loved Molly’s house because her mother always had Velveeta cheese in the fridge and came home late so we could blast the Hi-Fi and sing Please Please Me and jump on the couch, while Uncle John read the paper in the dining room.

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April 29, 2014

Deeper Still

My phone rang and I could tell by the caller ID that it was David. I waited for the automated voice to explain to me that I was receiving a call from an inmate at Norfolk MCI, then some warnings and disclaimers before I pressed 1 to connect.

“Hello!” David called into the phone, starting a timed conversation that would be periodically interrupted by beeps, recordings and then abruptly terminated after ten minutes.

David has been in prison for over 12 years now for the murder of my son. You can read more about our unlikely meeting in the Visit. He calls occasionally, writes sporadically, but I consider our friendship to be valuable. He is bright, candid and upfront. I can tell when things are not so good and I try to encourage him and point him to Jesus. The last talk we had he was upbeat and reflective. He was allowing God to shape him, to change some things that needed changing. Then he said this;

“If this is what it took to get me to this place, it was worth it.”

My first thought was,

That is a heart God really loves. Then my next thought was,

Wait! It cost my son’s life.

The paradox threw me and I could only be silent. I had to think this through.

Jake is my youngest son of three boys and the least crazy. Spence was the lead Risk-Taker and Miles loved following his brother so they both wore me out when they were little. I felt like part lifeguard, referee and guardian angel, with my Mommy antennae always high and alert, ready to rescue them from tumbling off cliffs or being swept out to sea. I took them to New York City once and my hands were perpetually locked around their little arms the whole time. It was exhausting.

But one time I took Jake to a swimming pool. There were lots of people from our church there, and maybe because Jake had more common sense than my other two boys I did not watch him as carefully. But something made me look up from a conversation I was having poolside to search for him, and my eyes locked onto his little face just as it was about to go under the water. He couldn’t swim.

He didn’t look terrified. He had inadvertently slid into the deeper end of the pool, and now on tiptoes he realized he was in big trouble. He just looked for me. He didn’t even call out. I yelled at another mother who was just a few feet away to grab him. He was pulled up and out, humbled and safe.

I think this is how we are with Jesus sometimes. He calls us deeper and deeper and then there are times that are terrifying because we think, “This is too deep. I can’t swim. I’m going under.” But then our eyes lock onto his and we know we are somehow safe.

People my age are very inclined to safety. I had a patient several weeks ago who was fairly healthy and just a few years older than me. He told me he and his wife had just finished remodeling their home, making it “handicap-friendly” by widening the halls, doors, putting in a wheel chair ramp, grab-bars, and a handicap accessible tub. I assumed they were accommodating a very disabled relative or friend. No, he shrugged. We’re just getting ready for when we get old. I was astonished.

I bet when Jesus first said, “Follow me,” his disciples were filled with a great sense of adventure and awe. The crowds, the miracles; how glorious1 But as time went by, many walked away. “Your sayings are too hard,” they said. In other words, the water was getting too deep.

Jesus consistently told them that to follow him would be hard. Crazy things like;

To gain your life, you must lose it.

If someone takes your shirt, give them your coat.

Bless those who persecute you.

Now take up your cross and follow me.

Many walked away. And by the time Jesus carried his own cross to Calvary, everyone had forsaken him, except John. And his mom. As they watched a horribly beaten and disfigured Jesus breathe his last breath, I doubt they understood even a fraction of the magnitude of this event. Oswald Chambers said,

“There is an aspect of Jesus that chills the heart of the disciple to the core and makes the whole spiritual life gasp for breath.”
I remember sitting in a chair in the ER January 26^th, 2002. My son’s lifeless body lay on a stretcher in the next room. I held his wallet in my hands. In it was a card with Jeremiah 29:11 printed on it. I read it, searching for answers already.

For I know the plans I have for you…Plans? My mind reeled. Everything I thought I knew about God, now, I’m not so sure. He looks …different. Chambers continues,

“Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange…”

How far will I really follow Jesus? I’ve been following Him for 26 years so I know I will not turn around and go home. But will I fall asleep in the garden? Will I run for cover when persecution comes? Or just tone it down a bit so that everyone likes me, because now that Jesus saved me, I’m pretty darn nice. And do I have to actually hang out with the poor, the drug-addicted, the convict? Let’s just invent a new program and throw money at them. Drive-by compassion.

I think the measuring stick God uses for how deep we really go in for him is in relationships. It’s great to work in a food pantry or street-preach or sing in a choir. But Jesus touched people, ate with people, wept with people and healed those who asked. Some were rich, some crazy, many were “untouchables” that he went ahead and touched anyway. He went in deep, all the way. This is love defined.

It’s awkward for me, this relationship thing. It’s never been easy and if it weren’t for Jesus, well I’d probably be dead, but if I were alive, I would be in living in a tree-house in the woods with a big No Trespassing sign stuck to the tree, like the Lorax. Instead, He gives me David Myland, and others, to love and encourage and say Yes, it is all worth it. And more than that, it is a high honor to follow Him. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. Isaiah 43:2 NLT

In fact, you can go deeper still.

February 13, 2014

Not For Sissies

Me and my Valentine at Acadia. Still friends after climbing that thing behind us.

“That’s it. I quit.” I lifted myself back down through the crevice, wedging my left knee between the two huge boulders and dangling my right foot into midair, searching for a place to step down to.

“We’re almost there! You can do it Robin. I can help you!” my husband pleaded from above.

Love is patient.

I was beyond help. I was tired, in pain and worst of all, I was sweaty and hot. Now I know the guy knows me well enough to know this is the end of my last thread.

“I’m happy waiting right here!” I snapped back at him, then began to mutter that I NEVER should’ve done this in the first place, I’ll NEVER do it again and what’s the point in climbing anyway? I was happy just driving to the top of a mountain. I was even happy climbing halfway up this stupid mountain. The view was just as breathtaking 400 feet below me and I sure didn’t need another twenty feet of pain and terror to get a better view of the mountains and the ocean beyond. I was vexed. I found a little ledge in the shade and peeled off my socks and shoes.

Shortly thereafter I heard grunting and snorting above me and watched a young man with a backpack who looked like he was late for a calculus class work his way through the same crevice that I had backed down through, only with less grace I hope.

“The backpack throws off my balance,” he explained, a little startled by me sitting there. I nodded and waved as he descended down the trail, wishing I could go with him, but I told C.B. I’d wait.

This was our second anniversary trip to Acadia National Park. Last year we hiked up a different mountain. That trail edged along the side of the mountain, so it was like you were walking along the windowsill of a skyscraper the whole way up. I complained and moaned from the bottom to the very top, everything from not being able to breathe to threatening to puke. C.B. just smiled at me and waved me along like I was some kind of Outward Bound drop-out.

I said I would hike again, but a kinder mountain, please. I’m thinking there is no such thing.

The day before we had gone biking and after three hours I told him I was going to cry if I saw another hill. He smiled and led me back to the bike shop.

“You did great, honey.!” Yeah, save it pal. My thighs feel like they have been drawn and quartered. And I’m sweaty. Yuk.

Love is kind.

C.B. and I met when I was 40. We had both been humbled by divorce. He had been single for nine years; me for three. When I say single I mean alone. We both dabbled a bit with dating, but when a Christian dates it is this awkward circling dance that must end in either marriage behind curtain number one, or rejection behind curtain number two. If it’s not going somewhere then it derails quickly. So singleness can become a way of life. And when you know Jesus, it is not as lonely. I can’t say you are never lonely because God didn’t create us to be alone, hence Eve. But we were kind of used to alone. Anyway, sparks flew. I said Yes. And we both stepped back into the unpredictable waters of marriage.

Love does not envy, or boast.

I think that marriage is not for sissies. If you want the kind of marriage that God talks about, becoming one, submitting, dying, never leaving or forsaking…it takes guts and courage. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I’m so good at winning an argument. But I’m so bad at really listening, accepting and laying the whole debate down. Surrender. Ouch.

It does not demand its own way…

We’ve been married 16 years, which is short time for most people our age. But after the death of a child, moving three times, pastoring for five years, job losses, a cancer diagnosis and repeated solicitations from AARP, we can say that a lot of water has rushed under our bridge and nearly taken the bridge down. There are things I have said that I can’t take back, let downs, disappointments; we could both score high on the sparring field of marital combat. It’s tempting sometimes, to pull out the card and wave it. But God took my card and tore it up. He threw it “as far as the east is from the west”, which I realized as I flew to Korea that it’s so far, it ceases to exist. Precisely.

It is not irritable and it keeps no record of wrong.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. C.B knows I don’t like chocolates and I only like spontaneous flowers. I’ve saved the best of the best cards over the years and he is a beautiful writer, although my son Miles wins best Valentine’s poem when he was in high school:

Roses are red

Violets are blue,

My pulmonary arteries

Pump for you!

That was both a nod to my nursing profession and good use of his anatomy and physiology class.

But besides being grateful for a husband who really does love me, even when I quit on mountains and cry on bike rides, I am mostly grateful for a husband who is steadfast in his love for Jesus, because there at the cross we remember His love for us, a love that gave all, forgave all and the grace that keeps us daily ever pressing closer to what love really means. I confess I still have a ways to go, but I’m liking the journey more and more.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

We are already planning a return to Acadia next fall. We will climb again because C.B. loves to climb mountains and after 16 years I can truly say I love to follow him. Only I get to pick the mountain. Something friendlier, kinder… maybe I can rent a donkey.

Love never fails.

(all verses from God’s valentine to us:1 Corinthians 13:4-8)