Today my sweet husband went to work and I was puttering around the apartment tidying when I found a treasure. I was cleaning up the kitchen table and putting away his old laptop into its case when I found a giant cache of every love letter I ever wrote to him over the four+ years of our relationship. I knew he had saved them, but to find them all at once in one pile was overwhelmingly dear. I read through a few of them and smiled at the sheer amount of affection within them.
What a joy that our hope was fulfilled and here we are today, three months married, and the Lord helps me grow in love for him in deeper ways than I previously believed to exist. I did not know that I could have such deep attachment to another person who is so other from me. And it continues to deepen, shattering my imagined glass floor each time.
My husband is many things. He is a servant of the Lord, a brother in Christ, my soul friend and life partner. He is a son, a brother, a hard worker, a teacher, a student of the Word. He is funny and serious and easy to live with. He is thoughtful and genuine and possesses no ounce of pretention, meaning everything that he says. He is devoted and present and the best listener ever.
I think about him all the time and thank God for him over and over each day. One thing in particular stands out to me, though, that I keep coming back to: my husband is good.
It is not an inherent goodness that is natural to him – it is the transformation of his heart by Jesus, to love and serve and sacrifice. It is a pure goodness that comes from our Father, and I see it all the time in the most amazing and dear ways.
It is coming home from work to find my laundry folded neatly and stacked according to what drawer I put things in. It is underwear being folded into triangles and dishes being done and the dentist’s bill paid and the trash taken out. It is clean sheets and treats from work and listening, always listening, to me prattle on about basically nothing and for him to take me seriously and hold me when I’m upset. It is forgiveness and telling the truth and taking things to the Lord in prayer and pushing me to be better but also just showing me what it looks like to be better and be the bigger person.
Goodness that echoes Christ and His pure heart, His flickers of divinity dwelling within the peaceful, sleeping man next to me under flannel sheets with Christmas trees on them. The Spirit shows Himself in our fruit, and it is goodness.
My husband is a good man. It is goodness that is beyond human because the way he is able to set himself aside is not human – it is of Christ, and it is beautiful, and it makes me more beautiful too.
