Reason # Two: Because He Loves Me!

I know--it looks like I'm off to a pretty lame start, if that's the only reason I could come up with. Nothing real earth-shattering about that, huh? It reads like a syrup-y sweet children's song made famous by a purple dinosaur: "I love you, you love me; we're a happy family. With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you; won't you say you love me, too?"

Knowing that I am loved makes all the difference in the world to me. It's a foundation to build the security of the relationship, an anchor of stability through life's storms. Life is hard and relationships are hard work: why bother at all, if there isn't love?

How do I know he loves me? Well, that would be another blog, but suffice it to say, he declares his love to me in a myriad of ways. It's not like the old farmer's wife joke. Reminiscent of the dialogue in "Fiddler on the Roof" the wife asks her husband one day if he loves her. The old farmer bellows, "Woman, I told you once on the day we got married, and if it ever changes I'll let you know!" But, like the Fiddler, I sometimes take for granted the way he expresses his love for me, through good deeds or provision of material needs, because I want him to say it in other ways. He gets irked like the Fiddler's wife, and says, "Do I love you? For twenty-five years, I've blah, blah, blahhed, and you ask me if I love you!"?

Those two illustrations prove the point that it is quite possible to live most of your life with someone and not know how to express love in a way that meets his/her need to be loved!

Now it's time for my confession. I've read the Five Love Languages, I've taught on the Ten Most Important Emotional Needs, I know that "Men are from another planet" and speak a whole different language when it comes to sex and romance. But, after all these years, I really don't know how to LOVE my husband.

Yes, I promised before God and man to love, honor, comfort, and cherish him. Yes, I committed myself to choosing to love him, knowing that my feelings would often ebb and flow like a full moon tide. Yes, I know how to meet his BASIC needs: Like Dr. Laura's "Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands," I know he can be fairly satisfied with a good meal and good sex. But in all my selfish introspection over the years about how MY needs weren't being met, I recall very few times of thinking, journaling, and praying about his needs and how to meet them.

So, enough about me, let's talk about what he thinks about me. (Joke, a bit of egotistic humor thrown in to lighten it up a bit!) Though this blog is all about me, and why I love my husband, it has to be about him, too, and how he shows me love. I intend to examine more carefully the language he chooses to love me with, for that is the biggest hint that he wishes to be loved in the same ways.

The beautiful bouquet of flowers on my kitchen table proves his love for me by saying that he was thinking of me, even while he was gone for a week. Now, I know flowers don't mean much to a guy, but how many times did I express my love for him, and say that I missed him while he was gone. Or, did my lack of expression cause him to wonder if I wished he never even came back at all?

I am so blessed to have a husband who loves me.
Lord, help me to show him how much I love him!