My Valentine

Photo credit: Where Bluebirds Fly Photography

The kids wake at 6:40, and before I can roll over and offer to go grab them, he’s already quietly slipped out of bed. I gratefully snuggle deep into the covers, treasuring a few more moments before my eye lids need to be pried open.

Downstairs I hear echoes of conversations with the toddler, of a bottle being made for the baby, of admonishments to be quiet because mommy is sleeping. And then car doors and quiet.

Yesterday at church the pastor preaches on the essence of marriage. How marriage is covenant, and how our culture’s mindset of contract or consumer destroys it. And I nod my head and my heart swells because I watch this covenant love in action everyday.

I see it when he rolls out of bed for the third straight time when the baby cries. The beauty of the bottle is the sharing of the load, only he doesn’t keep count and all too often chooses his wife’s sleep over his own.

I see it in the skis and the bikes collecting dust in the garage. Past times once loved, replaced by greater loves. In this season of diapers and toddling steps and sticky floors and sleepless nights, he knows the pursuit of such things means time away from his girls and he chooses his girls. But the choice is made without an ounce of self-pity or regret, as he truly believes he has chosen the better. And belly laughs and wrestling and lifting up for a shot at the hoop bring far greater joy in this season.

The grand gestures are there. A little box to open on Valentine’s Day, surprise getaways, a night out on the town to see a show. Memories and tokens that add sparkle and flash.

But it is not those that bind my heart deep to his. It is the everyday. The poopy diaper changed, the run to the store after a long day of work, the day off spent painting and cleaning and child corralling. The touch on the small of my back at just the right moment, the eyes met dancing with laughter at yet another toddler quotable. The groaning together at the end of another hard baby night, but knowing we’ll survive because there’s two of us and one of her and we know “it’s just a phase.”

And he goes about his days. Day in and day out, building and loving and shepherding this family. Always working, thinking, planning, serving. And the beautiful thing is there’s no self-pity or horn tooted or accolades sought. Just quiet steady duty and commitment done with willing delight. In this day and age we tend to think of duty as boring and burdensome. It’s a word that might make you cringe, and it certainly is not plastered on the cards perched in front of all those red and pink envelopes. But this man knows the secret. He knows the blessing of duty, how it tills and prepares the soil for an untold harvest of blessing and love and yes, romance. He knows romance without the duty, without the commitment, without the covenant is empty and hollow and a flash in the sky that fades fast. And in this dutiful love I know I’m getting a glimpse of my Jesus. And I know that I do not deserve this covenant love.

People come and they comment on my strength, my ability to walk through this past season of grief and waiting and unknowns. I’m the wordy one, the one they saw and heard from more often. I usually reply that any strength they see is from Jesus. Which is true, but that strength is also in large part due to His covenant love made manifest to me in this man of mine.

The house is still quiet, but at any moment he will return. Because I know my man, I would wager that his arms will be full of kids, breakfast, coffee and likely flowers. Because what else would you do at 7am on your holiday day off?