Love...

Patient.  Kind.  Not envious or boastful, not proud or rude or selfish.  Slow to anger, not delighting in evil but rejoicing with the truth, not keeping a record of wrongs.  Always trusting, hoping, protecting.  Enduring.  I think this is a pretty high standard, hard to live up to.  But it's what God says is the standard for real love.

When I would read it in the past, this description always seemed to highlight my shortcomings to me: I lose my patience with my kids; I tend to be selfish sometimes; I have been known to be rude to my family or lose my temper over nothing or keep score.  (Big surprise, I know.)  So did my dear husband.  So does pretty well everyone I know.  But when I read this again in the first week after Ramsy's death, what I saw instead of the ways we all fall short was how Ramsy really, truly did love like this.  Not every single second, not in every single incident, but overall; and his successes in reaching for these sky-high standards far outshine the ways that he fell short in his love for me and the kids.  He loved God, loved God's standards, and prayed every single day to grow in patience and wisdom and selflessness. And then he let God change him, which is sometimes the hardest part.  And we got the benefit of that.

A few years ago I bought him a card that said everything I wanted to say to him that Valentine's Day.  It said, "The moment I heard my first fairy tale, I began looking for you."

I'm so glad I found you, husband.

Thank you.