How Do I Love You: Let Me Count 35 Ways
We thought we knew.
When we stood together in wedding white promising forever, we figured we had a handle on this thing called love.
We were clueless. We had no idea where our vows would take us, including the cancer of all our parents and my own diagnosis of breast cancer seven years ago.
In sickness and in health.
We. Had. No. Idea.
Fast forward more than three decades. On Monday, Kevin and I celebrated 35 years of marriage. And that thing they tell you of the years flying by is really true, because I don't feel old enough to be saying I have done 35 years of anything. I still feel a bit clueless. I began a list ten years ago, on our 25th anniversary of reasons I love this man and have added to it at 5-year intervals.
So, indulge me this day in counting 35 ways and maybe you will be prompted to start your own list for someone you love. Life and love are worth celebrating.
How do I love you? I count 35 ways.
I love that in your glance I feel chosen by you once again.
2. I love the silence of our affection; that across a crowded room we can share a joke or a smile.
3. I love that in your eyes our daughters can see reflected there the depth of man they want to marry.
4. I love that I am a better “me” with you than I would have been without you.
5. I love that in your heart I am always beautiful.
6. I love that your shoulders are wide enough to carry the responsibility of caring for our family, yet your knees know where to go when the load is too great.
7. I love that in the night’s stillness I can reach out and find you beside me.
8. I love that you have left big footprints for our sons to follow.
9. I love holding hands with you.
10. I love that there is this neon sign above your head that flashes, “I am a pastor. I care about you” and complete strangers will pour out their life stories to you. (A little awkward when we’re at a restaurant or movie, but...)
11. I love that you are an off-the-chart extrovert (HOW many Facebook friends?). Watching you interact with people is amazing.
12. I love your sense of adventure, and how you never get lost. (Tolkien’s phrase, “All who wander are not lost” was written for you.)
13. I love how I fit perfectly under your arm.
14. I love listening to you preach and sometimes, when I should be listening to stories in Genesis or Luke, I can’t help thinking, “Wow! I’m married to this man!”
15. I love listening to the pride you have in our city. In our community of faith. In our family.
16. I love that we both love hiking. This hobby has taken us to Camelback Mountain, the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai, New Zealand, and other places in the world.
17. I love knowing that God has brought us together.
18. I love the boy that has never grown up. (Sharpie Wars, anyone? Soda Crackers flung like ninja stars? Wrestling matches?)
19. I love that you have shared life with me when we have walked through some of the hardest things imaginable.
20. I love how you come up behind me in the kitchen and kiss my neck and then make coffee and “get in my way.”
21. I love how you encourage my dreams.
22. I love how you asked the kids when they were at home, around the dinner table, “What do I want to know about your day?” and then you listened to their answers and sometimes said, “I don’t want to know that,” and made them dig deeper.
23. I love when your brain works faster than your mouth, so you make up new words in the English language. I love how the kids find this vastly entertaining during your sermons.
24. I love the laugh lines on your face and knowing I can trust you to care for me even when we are both gray and wrinkled. (Wait a minute, we are both gray and wrinkled!)
25. I love that you don’t mind my scars.
26. I love witnessing the favor and respect that others have for you as a city councilmember.
27. I love how you take time to read every week to children at Galveston Elementary school.
28. I love watching how the grandchildren love you.
29. I love how you welcomed my mom in our home for the last four months of her life.
30. I love that one of your goals is to live life without offense; in your heart people are simply awkward, not cruel.
31. I love how you invite people to join together for a vision larger than themselves.
32. I love how you remind everyone that if they don't feel the need to pray to God than they are not living a big enough dream.
33. I love how our grown children want to spend time with you.
34. I love that I have fallen in love more than a thousand times, and it’s always been with you.
35. I love the memories of 35 years with you.
I LOVE YOU!