It used to be the way he held my hand in front of his parents when we were seventeen.  Oh the little I knew about how much I would chase down their approval of me for years and years to come.

Then it was the way he wrote love to me on real paper with a real pen, signed his name and signed his heart to mine one piece at a time.  I would wait for days, instead of seconds, to hear from him in another decade before technology replaced real relationships and we all lost the beauty of having to wait, the appreciation that comes with anticipation.

It was the way he kissed me that put him (and those lips of his) into a category all his own.  I dreamed about seeing those lips on babies that were ours.

It was the scent of Polo Sport by Ralph Lauren, I could smell it across a church service and the mere smell twisted my heart all up.

It was absolute, raw charm that exuded from deep brown eyes.  They burned and etched their way right through me.

It isn’t always the same thing for more than a few months or years.  There have been a lot of ‘one things’ that turn my heart his way, that melt the heart of mine that freezes up sometimes. 

The way he stands up for me, even when I don’t always deserve it – not much more says love than someone’s “I am with you, for you, at all costs”.  

How he thinks this post-five-baby me is something to look twice at.

All these little and big things morph into a marriage that while it isn’t perfect and some days it is plain ugly,

we are

both

still

here.

Today Mat Kearney’s been playing through the speakers….song after song around here because the heart is (only a little) frozen and those words, the way that music (and a whole lot of Jesus) wove hearts back together just a few years ago does something deep, something beyond words.  I go about my day and breathe deep and listen.  Words and melodies and phrases that trigger memories, trigger love.  And its one of those seasons when love needs a little prompting. I know how lovely things can look on a blog, at church on Sunday, at the grocery store in line saying hello and anywhere else.  Yes, there is a generous smattering of lovely here and we choose gratitude most of the time.  But you’ve got to know that every day isn’t a perfect one.  And if your whole life feels like the imperfect one, let me just spell this right out:

Nothing is beyond repair.  You, your marriage, your children or anything else that seems hopeless, isn’t.  I know so few things for certain but one of the precious few is that God is so, truly in the business of miracles and doing impossible things.

I swore I’d never forget.  Never forget all the ashes He turned into beauty right before my very eyes.  But time makes it easier not to remember.  The sting of a fresh hurt or even a handful of heartaches blurs the memory of the miracles.  So I’m off to listen loud and relish that warm feeling inside from today’s “one thing” that melts my heart for the husband of my youth.