This is not my first attempt at a post about this subject. In fact, I had another post completely written [tweetmeme source=”@tarheel810” only_single=false http://www.URL.com%5Dand sitting in cyber-world in rough draft waiting for me to proof; but then I got in the car this morning and pressed play on my trusty iPod and this song came on. As I listened to the song, my heart felt as though it would beat out of my chest and my eyes began to moisten; I knew I had to make another attempt at this post, because even though the first attempt was heartfelt and true it did not adequately capture what I really want to say.
I say I love you, I say I need you
I try so many ways to say how my heart beats for you
I say I’m always thinking about you
There’s no way I’d want to face this life without you
And even though these words come from deep inside me
There’s so much more I don’t have the words to say
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Wow! Seven thousand, three hundred and five. When you think of it in those terms it seems so big; and when you realize I’m talking about 7,305 days it sounds like a really long time. Yet to me, it seems like no time at all. How can over seven thousand days seem like no time at all? It’s all about the context, and I’m referring to the 7,305 days (that’s 20 years by the way) that I have been married to my amazing wife Dena.
Although 20 years of marriage is an incredible milestone, I find it almost impossible to believe so much time has passed. Time can be funny like that. In a way July 1, 1990 when we said our vows seems like just yesterday; yet my life before her, without her, is so distant a memory that it is as if it never occurred. I think that this must have been what God intended in Mark 10:8 when Jesus said “and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh”. I feel as though I no longer exist, and for that matter Dena no longer exists, we exist as us. I think that is where so many couples run into trouble staying together is that feeling of no longer existing as an individual; although I see it as a good feeling.
I’m not going to say that Dena and I have had a fairytale marriage. If this were a fairytale the beautiful princess would have been rescued by her prince and they would have lived happily ever after. In the real world the princess doesn’t always get the prince. Sometimes that magical kiss does nothing more than make the frog look better than the other frogs. In the real world the princess didn’t ride off into the sunset with her knight in shining armor, she got stuck with me. Although over the years I have intended to be the perfect husband, I have more often that not fallen miserably short. Fortunately for me, Dena has been willing to pick me up, dust me off, and continue down the road on this journey together. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and in health. Through stupid mistakes and bad decisions. Through meaningless arguments and lack of expression of feelings. Til death do us part. For this I am eternally grateful in ways that I will never be able to adequately express, no matter how hard I try. As Steven Curtis Chapman says in the second verse of his amazing song What I Really Want to Say:
I know that sometimes my words can be as hard as stone
And sometimes my words have left you feeling so alone
So please forgive me and hear the words I’m saying now
I will spend my whole life looking for a way somehow
To let you know just how precious you are to me
I’ll use the best words I know but I still won’t say it all
I can only say the best that I know how that I love you Dena. I am so honored to have been allowed to be your husband for the last 20 years and wouldn’t trade one single second of it for anything.
Look out 14,610; here we come!
‘Cause what I really want to say
Is what the sun would say to the sky
For giving it a place to come alive
But my words get in the way
Of what I really want to say
Oh, what I really want to say
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Brian's Babble 