Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4 – 8
Or in The Message:
No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others. Isn’t always “me first”, Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts, God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies.
So, this is what love looks like! Sometimes I just sit back and ask, “How in the world did this happen?” Here we are, two old rusty gears – no longer new and shiny… but somehow you put these two misfitted gears together and the cogs match up and it works just perfectly. This is what happens when the absolutely wrong guy becomes so right!
We grew up a couple of years apart. He was our paper boy, but I was sleeping while he delivered our paper. He went to school with my brother. He was a real estate agent while I worked with a mortgage loan broker. He was a wild one in school – I was so timid I didn’t have much fun in school. My mother, I am sure, would have pointed straight at him and said, “Stay away from that one!” She always tried to protect me from the boys that had too much fun, if you know what I mean. And although I’m sure we were introduced and saw each other back in our hometown, we didn’t meet until years later after we had both moved to different towns and lived lives that calmed him down a bit and perked me up a bit.
Some would say it happened by chance. We don’t think it was chance. We think that our mothers nudged God a little bit and that He thought – “What the heck?” - and gave us a shot. It’s not by chance that we found each other. It was meant to be. It was God’s Hand. He wasn’t my type – and I wasn’t his, but here we are… perfect together!
God has a real sense of humor, you know it? Sometimes we just laugh at how different we are. I play by the rules, he thinks rules are only made to be broken. I don’t like a lot of “stuff” around, he does. I’m very picky about what I’ll eat, he loves to try new foods. I love being home, he loves going to new places. I love movies that are romantic comedies, he likes action and sci fi. I design and deliver training (which he knows nothing about), he rebuilds cars (which I know nothing about). He says he is a hopeless romantic, I say he’s clueless. When I get angry, I can carry that anger forever, he forgets about “whatever” in the next breath. I want to hash things out, he says, It’s done, let’s move on”. Oh yeah, God has a sense of humor all right!
But then, we are alike in many, many ways. We both love our kids. We both love our grandkids. We love each other. We both love spending time together. We respect each other. I love his family and he loves mine. We share a deep faith. We just plain ole enjoy each other… we love our differences and we love the ways that we are alike.
And here’s the thing that I know. He is absolutely one of the best men I have ever known. He treats people kindly. I think the day I knew I was in love with him was when he noticed an elderly man in distress outside a store. The man had a bike and he seemed to be ill. We couldn’t get the bike in the car, but he wouldn’t leave until he had gotten the store manager to check on the man and was ensured that he had a ride home. I hadn’t even noticed the man, but he did. And then there was the elderly woman that misdialed and got his cell phone the other day. He told the lady that she had the wrong number. She didn’t understand. Before she hung up, my sweetheart asked if she was all right. He wanted to know if she needed help. Wrong number, but he wanted to make sure that she was not in need of help before he released the call. He cares about people.
I know that every day for the rest of my life, he will make me laugh. And he’ll laugh with me. And he has a great laugh!!!!
And I know that I will learn things every day. I now know where a quarter panel is on a car. I know what clear coat is and what it looks like when paint dies. I know that you can’t ignore rust… there’s always more than what you see and it spreads like wildfire.
Some folks say that my eyes light up when I talk about Lamar. I’m sure they do. Who would have thought that at my age, I would fall in love with the absolutely right guy! I know another thing, too. My mother, today, would point right at him and say, “Oh yeah, that’s a good guy right there!”. And she would be very, very right!
Lord, Thank you for all that you give me. For my family, for my friends, and for all that love has brought me over the years. Thank you for gears that work well together – and for the aging and wear and rust that makes us appreciate what it took to get here. Thank you for the love that surrounds me - and, Lord, thank you for Lamar. Amen.
:-)
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