My friend Elizabeth Esther is challenging us to share the love on reasons why we love our spouses. I rose to the challenge because I too have been recently thinking about the lack of love and respect for our counterparts. While I envy her ability to concisely share her thoughts on her husband, I do not possess the concise attribute she exudes. Therefore, my list of 15 reasons is quite long but once I got started thinking of my husband, I just couldn't stop. So here I am at 11:36 pm finally putting the finishing touches on mine:
1. For the last eight years of marriage, I have been incessant in demanding to know areas where I can improve upon as his helper, his wife, and the mother of his children. In all that time he has always answered that I was perfect just the way I was. Acknowledging that neither of us are truly Perfect, he took full responsibility for my progess in maturity as indication of his example in leadership and character. Even while knowing I alone am responsible for my choices and actions, I look up to a man humble enough to claim dysfunction in our marriage, family, or finances as a challenge to first improve on himself before criticizing his wife. And believe me, between you and me we could come up with hundreds of ways I could be improving!
2. He never returns insult for insult. And that's no easy task when you're married to someone who leans a little to the melodramatic and has a creative vocabulary! Even in the middle of my occasional rants, I'm always struck by the way he can keep his demeanor completely impassive and keep silent even when my accusations run far from reality.
3. He forgives in word and deed even if the hurt hasn't been reconciled in his heart. I've seen him physically and financially reach out to someone who cheated him and many others out of thousands of dollars only to have him confide to me how he still struggles with forgiving that same person. For many of us, forgiveness is a journey but it's one he starts on right away, intentionally and zealously, not letting his feelings prohibit him from acting out in love to someone who has done him wrong.
4. His desire for me in our courting days was the single greatest display of acceptance and approval that has ever been bestowed upon me. My parents have always loved me but perhaps more as a by-product of their familial bond than by option of choosing me as theirs out of millions of children. When my husband choose me from the many other female options, his choice breathed confidence and security into me that has only grown since that day. As a young girl, you dream about your future spouse and wonder what sort of man will want you. When my man wanted me, I felt elevated to the creme of the crop, a huge step for a self proclaimed dork and social misfit.
5.He is Generous, with a capital G to the E to the Neurosis, displaying an uncommon disorder signified by habitual, obsessive, and compulsive giving. He views nothing as his. Vehicles, toys, food, material things...all have been loaned to him by Jehovah Jireh, his God who provides. If you have need of something he has, it's yours for the asking. The shirt off his back? It's yours, and three different people wearing his clothes walking around our house last week bore testimony to that.
6. After being out on the road for two weeks straight and logging overtime and networking at dinner times, his only thought is I how need a break on his return. He insists I go out, alone or with friends. And the tab is always on him.
7. He is the epitome of the quintessential Family Man. Once an avid athlete and perfecter of Me Time, he is now a man of Our Time, filling his off hours with driveway ball lessons and basement wrestling matches. It's not that he's given up on his personal hobbies. He's just perfected creatively incorporating his children into his interests. Age of Empires calling? He responds by strategyzing while juggling his son on his knee and teaching his daughter beside him. Badminton tourney? (Please refrain from giggles here...it is a very fast paced sport and not your grandma's lawn tennis!) Pack up your kid for a special date night and throw in some Gatorade and your old racquet to make them feel just like you. Volleyball in the park? Pack a picnic dinner and invite family and friends to join a just-for-fun game along the river. Sure, it might lack the competion he craves but with family by his side, his thirst for fun seems completely saturated.
8. To borrow a newly discovered word from my girls, my man is HOT! Smoking good looks are certainly an advantage in his rare misstep. When he locks his gaze on me, there is NOTHING I ain't willing to forgive and little I'll refuse to give up! (Sidenote: could be another reason why we had such difficulty pacing ourselves with pregnancies in the first four years! *sorry Mom, TMI...I know! ;o)
9. He has always shared diaper duty. Even in the first year of newborn birth while nursing, he insisted on getting up with me to keep me company during the feed and would often walk the baby back to his/her crib to sleep. I've never been nudged into duty in the middle of the night. If he hears it first, he's the first to respond.
10. Boy, does this man know how to give good gifts! The first months of our courting he was always lavish in his gift giving - jewelry with intimate significance, reservations at my favorite restaurants, and trips back and forth for me to visit. One of his greatest expenses was a $600 phone bill our first month of calling. Even in the financially leaner times, and we've known plenty, his gifts were always intentional, well thought through, and given at just the right time.
11. He often comes home with something that he insists I need while wearing his things out until they no longer serve their purpose. He has no desire to keep up with the Joneses and wears frugality like it's the new black.
12. He genuinely rejoices with those who rejoice. If someone else got a raise over him, he's the first to give congratulations. If a friend just made his first million, he is elated without having a renewed ambition to make it there next. If someone displays a better knack for something, he immediately steps to the side and is content to serve in the shadows.
13. He believes. He hopes steadfastly. He lives assured. He isn't one to what-if and I-wish-I-woulda. His confidence and future lies with One who knows all and sees all. He is content to let Him lead him into all good things.
14. He prays. About EVERYTHING. A gift of heritage from praying parents, he prays about things big and small. Whatever the outcome, he gives full credit to God for any victories and takes any seeming setback just as much as a part of God's plan.
15. He is flawed. He is imperfect. But not hopelessly so. For in the span of our years together I have seen him grow in marvelous ways, in leaps and bounds in some, small steps in others but always moving foward. I have been in awe of his increase in maturity and wisdom. I have stood with him in battles, bloodied and exhausted, but we've always finished them victorious. Though we are the perfect union of two people so commonly imperfect, we are committed to each other, our family, and most comforting, our God. For He is the One who married our two selves into one that His self might be more gloriously displayed through us.
