I am participating in the “Marriage Letters” that Amber and Seth Haines started writing to one another.
Pen and Paper © by qisur
Dearest Daniel,
When I saw people were writing letters to their spouses, I immediately wanted to participate. It wasn’t much longer afterwords that you and I hurt one another. We do this sometimes because even after almost 8 years of being married, there are still things we do not understand or know about one another. I like how that is a picture of how we will always be learning new things about God as we grow together.
As much as I don’t want to hurt you or be hurt by you, I am glad it happened, because I’ve grown more in love with you as a result. You and I are friends who melded into lovers without really ever dating. I miss the romance that we could have had, and even though we have three kids and we were not on a tropical island, I felt swept off my feet this weekend. Or maybe I enjoyed sweeping you off your feet! 😉 Either way, romance crept into our home again without any flowers, late night dates, or putting on cute clothes to go out. It happened because two old friends needed to find each other again, and we did.
As if you had planned the most perfect of words, you said what my soul needed to hear – that in our complete imperfection and obvious differences, we were made for one another. The shallow intertwined with the deep combines, and the two imperfect become one perfect. God uses the separate and brings us together to make us become more like His son.
Sometimes in the past I have wanted to charge ahead of you and bring you into my journey. I am learning to slow down and enjoy the path we take together. Forgive me for all those times I wanted to change you into my image, not God’s.
You might be wondering why I decided to write letters to you for all to read. Here’s why: when Granny was in the last years of her life, she took the love letters she’d received from my PaPa and burned them. Despite the fact that love can be private and intimate and deeply personal, I was sad that she didn’t preserve them for me and future generations to read. So, at the end of our days together, no one may want to read our love letters, but we will have them if they do.
I am so glad God gave me the gift of you which was better than anything I would have ever picked out.
I love you!
Jamie
I love how honest/real this is. That paragraph that starts with “Sometimes in the past…” That is very much me! I get it – I saw the marriage letter thing just after a really rough week/patch. I think God knew how much I needed to do this.