khongoroo.habibi.amor.dod. lover.

This is a post about the language of love.

This post is dedicated to my husband, Randall.

Normally, I shirk away from being public at all with something that may be perceived as "mushy," "gushy/girly," or otherwise annoying. But today, I give myself an exception because today we have been married for six months.

Six months ago, I woke up (if that's what you can call barely sleeping for only two hours), and I watched our wedding day unfold. It was beautiful. It could not have been better.

My father walked me down the aisle, and I was singing the whole way. I was singing that song about how He loves us, how He's jealous for us, and how His grace is an ocean that we're all sinking in. Randall cried when he saw me, and he kept crying until we had been on stage for a little while. We couldn't stop looking at each other and grinning, even though we were both so tired we could have slept forever.

Suddenly, we were married. And our ship set sail.

Listen, people. Let me tell you about the language of love. Every language has some term of endearment for those who are recipients of affection. Just in the title of this post I've listed Mongolian, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew and English words for "sweetheart" or "beloved." But the language of love goes far deeper than words we say to each other.

I knew that Randall loved Jesus before we got married. I knew he was cool, smart and that he balanced out my imbalances, smoothed my rough, lifted my low. But I did not know that his language of love was so deep, so pure, so... like Jesus. He is the one who reminds me of Redemption. He is the one who sacrifices daily so that I might be encouraged. He is the one who anchors me in grace and forgiveness. He gives flight to my dreams and doesn't try to rein in my idealistic tendencies. Actually, he doesn't try to rein me in at all. He values me, as I am, pushing me towards the Better Life all the while. He affirms that I am his life-partner, that we share the burdens and joys of life equally. No, he is not perfect. But he is becoming love, just like His Father is Love.

Randall says love better than any language. And I get to spend the rest of my life saying it back.