a love letter for you.

husband,

There's a young woman at church who recently split with her longtime boyfriend. Her Facebook status updates are gut-wrenching: She has had many bad days since the particular one when 'they' became just 'her.' I feel for her on so many levels. Normally she is one of those I can count on for smiles in the church foyer. She sidles up to me and tickles whichever little boy I have balanced on my hip and teases that she has chocolate right here for him. For now, though, she is unwillingly adrift at sea, straining to see her Captain on the horizon when the empty spot in the boat next to her seems to scream of its vacancy.

I remember those days. I laid on my dorm bed, blasting Maroon 5 and thinking I would surely never find someone whose freckles captivated me like yours did. "You'll find someone better," I was promised by both friends and co-workers alike. I filled journal pages with angry rants and desperate pleas, all unheard by you. You knew I was still madly in love with you... I vacillated between dramatically ignoring you (you sat right across from me in class!) and staring at you longingly. My methods didn't seem to have changed from the 3rd grade.

Buddies dragged me to church twice a week and at some point I stopped doodling our initials on the sermon programs and started listening to what was being said. I tucked Maroon 5 away (much to my roommate's relief) and went and sat on the beach with my homework and ached for you, yes... But more often than not, I was looking for my Captain on the horizon instead of your face in the crowd.

And we found our way back to each other, after we'd found our way back to Him.

Do you know that this handful of years later I still notice my wedding ring and am pleasantly surprised by it? I twirl it on my pregnancy-swollen finger and smile at what it means. This morning as you got ready for work, I glanced up from our bed in the dim light of dawn and could see in the closet my journal from that angsty time of our courtship, the worn corners of letters you wrote me poking out from between its pages. You still write me letters sometimes, but my favorite love letters from you are wrapped up in the tiny bodies that fill this house with their small, happy voices. They run around and make a mess all day and their grins make me think of you. We pilot often choppy waters in a boat that gets more full as the years pass, but we're in it together- and the Captain grows clearer on the horizon the tighter we clasp hands and squint our eyes to see Him jointly.