Love's True Colors!

Look at my darling fixing our 10-year-old garden path! He is a very patient man, because each one of those gray-colored cement 'cobble stones' had to be lifted up, raked under, and new sand added to lift them back up (they had begun to sink into oblivion from all the spraying with the hose I had done), then carefully smooshed right back down in the same spot from whence they came. I would never, ever, ever, evvvvveeeeer have the perseverance for such a tedious task.

...Or would I??????

One of my favorite things to do is watch Mike puttering in our yard, keeping it beautiful. He's a hard worker! I know they have those personality tests that determine if you are an otter or whatever, but my man is definitely an ANT! He is moving and a'groovin' nonstop. Really, I would work alongside him, but the simple task of watching him exhausts me...and I'm only one woman.

Anyway, I digress. Sometimes he works in shorts and up-to-his-kneecap white socks. My daughter's old lifeguard hat will be pulled down on his head, complete with string tied under the neck, and, well, it is just endearing. You know how we moms love to tiptoe to the room of our napping tykes and lean against the doorframe, sighing over the beauty of being a mom --- when they're asleep? It's kind of like that feeling. When those little gems are all pink-cheeked and curled up under their soft cotton quilts we stitched with love, all memories of the terrible twos, etc., are melted into non-existence (till they wake up....oh, then we remember). Well, when I look out our home's windows and see Mike out there, all cute-like, all memories of the bumpy paths smooth over.

And thinking of this today reminded me that love is not only true blue. It is the yellow of the warm and sunshiny moments, it is every hue of pink, pink when things are more stinky. Gray has its arm in there, adding discouragement or disappointements (which, shoot, do happen when sinners marry sinners), and purple, when it extends the royal scepter of grace toward all offences and silly-spoken words. And let's not exclude red, for those hot, fun two-party extravaganzas. There are so many other colors, each with their own added hues and tones and vibrancies. You can see that love/marriage is a full rainbow of colorful moments!

This coming September that man and I will have been married for thirty, 30, three tens and a zero, years! Many are the times I've had to lift up our marriage to the Lord, rake under His grace any unforgiveness I've harbored, added some new and fresh attitude or action to plump up any ruts we've gotten into, and then plopped right back into the game, trusting the Lord and admiring the good and noble things I see in my frog prince.

Making marriage last a lifetime takes wheelbarrow loads of patience, endurance, and perseverance.

So, see? I DO HAVE perseverance, after all! And I bet you do, too!!!

"This I command you, that you love one another," (John 15:7).

In case, after reading this blog, you
think I let Mike do all the work, oh,
contrare. I pluck fresh juicy lemons
from the tree, give them a squeeze or two, add a little filtered water, lots of sugar, and tons of zesty yellow love, and walk out there with a refreshing drink to revive him for the rest of the day's yard work! :)

Oh, if you decide to do this for your own hard-working man -- remember
the straw! It will make him forget all
the times he was at 'his last straw' with you!

Keep on loving!