He had met her while stationed overseas. They fell in love, the soldier and his beautiful, Asian flower. He married her and brought her home with him, and it was there that they lived their happily ever after. Kids, a house, and love.
She was independent, he said. Never asked for help.
He spoke of how they had had so many beautiful years--so many memories woven into a life's tapestry.
They argued over who would go first, when they picked out their grave plots, not long ago. Picked out a bit of earth-- side by side, just as they had always been.
He was supposed to go first, he had said, through the tears.
He spoke of his love to anyone who would listen, his voice thick with emotion.
He wept when making the calls to his children--wept at the gaping hole he felt.
Tears fall when I hear his story.
It wasn't particuarly different from many, I suppose.
Nothing grand or extravagant. Just a simple story of a love--quiet and deep-- between two souls.
But I was moved. Moved beyond any knight-in-shining-armor love story I've heard.
Because this love--the soldier and his lady's?--it wasn't stuff of fireworks and sunbursts, but a steady love that built its home brick by brick, year by year, weathering storms and sunshine until the very end.
And I pray, as I hold my husband's hand and listen to the old man's story, that our love will mirror his. That our children--when the years pass, and hair turns grey and the skin weathers-- will look at us and they will know of that love.
True love.
Not the stuff of fairy tales and songs, but the deep, quiet love that breathes life into each other's soul.
The gentle love that gives and gives and doesn't seek in return.The love that is so rich and deeply rooted in Christ, that fleeting thrills of passion look like frail leaves blowing in the wind.
The kind of love that sits quietly, side by side, hands clasped tightly, through the good and the bad.
A love that doesn't need to be shouted from the rooftops, glorified and praised--but the kind that will kneel together in prayer and humility.
The love that grows with each passing year and thrives on the hopes and dreams of the other and weeps together in the failures and trials.
The love, that even in the midst of the argument, whose hands still find the other's and holds tight.
The kind that laughs together and finds joy in the other. That sees the good, the bad, the ugly-- and presses deeper into the hug.
The love that is strong when the other is weak. That carries the other that last long mile. That prays the other through the storm.
That is the love I want our children to see and remember.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
So I pray tonight for the old man and his broken heart.
That he might rest in the peace of the Father and be comforted by the deep, quiet love that moved our hearts to tears.
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