What's Love Got To Do With It?

Those are about the only words that I know to that old Tina Turner song, but I've quoted them often, when talking with a young person who has been married for only a short while and they are wondering what they were thinking when they married their husband or wife. They've argued or are going through some other marital difficulty. I usually end up telling them that in a marriage there are times when you don't feel alot of love for eachother. Especially when you've argued and are stewing, more angry than you thought you could ever be at another human being. Or perhaps when you are going through kind of a low time and you look at your spouse and you just don't feel much of anything. It isn't that you don't love them, but emotions tend to ebb and flow. Actually, we can be thankful that we don't have to sustain that rapturous passionate love that we felt for eachother when we first met, that made us think that we couldn't live another minute without eachother. Goodness, if we'd had to sustain that kind of emotion, energy and passion for 21 years, we'd both be dead! *smile* But through the years, with the help of the Lord, a beautiful reassuring love slowly forms within each of you for the other. Married love is truly a miracle. There's a country song that says "Your Love Amazes Me". That is just how I feel about my DH. That he still loves me so much after seeing me at my very worst.....it just doesn't get any more amazing than that! I remember one particular evening: Ed, Daniel and I had finished supper. Daniel had taken off outside to play. Ed and I were sitting there reading the paper, midst the leftovers of dinner, exchanging bits and pieces of conversation, when this moment of affection just kind of rose up between us there across the table from one another. I lowered the paper and looked at him and said, "Have I told you lately that I love you?" He kind of grinned back at me. Nothing else needed to be said. It was a special moment indeed.
Oh and another special moment: We had gotten ready for church this particular Sunday morning and I had difficulty finding an outfit that I felt comfortable in and my hair just wouldn't quite do what I wanted it to. Anywayyyyyy.......we are in the car, going up the lane, and I kind of whiningly said to Ed, "Honey, do think I'm pretty?" (You know how we can be sometimes, ladies. *grin*) He gently stopped the car, turned to me and said, "To me, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am the only one who matters, k?" Wow.....that just settled it right then and there for me. *smile* Ed doesn't say things like that very often. And that is okay because I know that when he does say something like that, he really means it. I've remembered and cherished that comment many times through the years.

Each Sunday morning at church, birthdays and anniversaries are recognized. This past Sunday our 21st wedding anniversary was recognized and when we came up to the front, we renewed our wedding vows. Daniel and Erin were there with us and stood with us. We had made the plans with Pastor Martin beforehand. It was nothing lavish, just simple, but meaningful. I hadn't thought it would be as emotional as it turned out to be. But we told eachother, in essence, that "We Still Do", a song that a young lady at church wrote and sang for us, after we exhanged our vows. So, tomorrow, we will have been married for 21 years!!! WE DID IT!!! Well, I think Ed had to do a WHOOOLLLLLLEEEE lot more than me through the years! Wow, but he has had to put up with alot! *smile* But, again, he's one amazing husband!

"Love is when you take away the feeling, the passion, and the romance in a relationship, and find out you still care for that person."