To be loved

Before I married Nate, I didn't fully understand what it meant to be loved.  That seems like a terrible thing to say, honestly.  It feels like I ought to say that I fully understood what it meant to be loved because of God's provision.  The truth, however, is that I understand God's love better now that I see it from my husband.  Something about that physical person manifesting this patience, this kindness, this generosity, this selflessness - day after day after day.  And, none of it depends on me.  Not on how I look.  Not on how I behave.  Not on my attitude.  Not on the shape of our home.  Not on the meal I put together.  In short, this love seems unphased by my very Mary-ness, which is often quite filled with ickitude.  Now, if that is not a manifestation of God's love, I don't know what is.

So, through my husband, I understand better than I ever have, the ways in which God loves me.  Loves us.

Yesterday, Nate brought home this bit of brightness.  I was taking a nap on the couch and opened my eyes to him sitting on the floor by me.  That was lovely.  Then, from behind his back, he brought forth this display of spring.  He thought of me when I wasn't with him, a fact that continues to amaze and impress me - even after a year of marriage.  We had a visit and some hugs, then he headed out to work in the garage, organizing the piles and piles of things that haven't moved a snit in the month we've been here.  

The garage is a bit like his kitchen.  Somewhere in my mind, I knew that.  Somewhere I understood that there was a place where he, not I, knew were every single item went.  Somewhere, I knew that he had utensils that allowed him to provide for us in ways that we very much need.  Yet, for fully a month I have pretended that the house was the end-all, be-all.  For a month, he patiently waited.  Never did I hear him complain - even when I asked him to do projects which needed said utensils.  Never did he refuse when I asked him to spend time with me, or time working in the house or time doing any one of hundreds of other things that weren't making his workspace functional.  Yesterday was the first day. 

He worked for hours shuttling items from the garage to the basement, from side to side, from the basement to the garage.  He set up shelves for tools, he set up lighting, he set up bins for toys and games.  He made what was a mess functional.  He knows what is there and where it belongs.  It is beautiful to me.  Awe-inspiring.  What is really shocking, though, is that he was able to wait so long to do that which is so meaningful to him.  He waited for me.  Waited for me to stop crying.  Waited for me to settle in.  Actually waited for me to say, "Why don't you just head back out after supper?"  He's an adult.  He doesn't need my permission for this type of endeavor.  Yet, he chose to wait for it.  He chose to submit to my desires over his own - setting himself aside for me.  

Now, I have the humble joy of watching him putter around his space.  Putting tools and hardware where he will find them most useful.  It nearly brings me to tears to see how eagerly he makes 'home' in this cinderblock structure, lined with spray-paint, cool and damp, lit with long fluorescent tubes.  I watch him, and I ask God, "Please, don't let me forget this.  Please, remind me often of what this man silently offers to me each day.  Please, humble me to the degree that I may submit to him even half as often as he submits to me."  

My husband isn't perfect.  Of course not.  But, I can honestly say that in our marriage, in his love for me, in the bright yellow of the daffodils on the kitchen table, and in that  ramshackle garage, I see evidence of how Christ loves the church.  How great is God's grace to me.