Love is worth it

I was visiting someone in the hospital yesterday when a wife of an ill person told me something I know, but sometimes forget. Kinda like where my keys or my wallet or my glasses are. I just forget, because, well, that's what and who I am.

The wife said, "I really like Mary. When she doesn't sit by me in church, I think something is wrong."

Sometimes you just know something is right. Not in a moral way, but in a-I-can't-figure-a-way-this-will-ever-get-better-sort of way. 

Thirty-one years ago today, I was blessed to be able to see that it can't get better because I got to marry Mary.

Time has passed remarkably slowly but quickly at the same time, if you know what I mean. This morning both my knees were hurting, joining my back in a painful symphony, so I know we've been together a long time, Mary and I. But still, it seems like yesterday that I had (long) hair, a bushy mustache, a white shirt and blue tie and she had a flowery dress. 

In ways that would become normal over time, I worked that morning before we went to a justice of the peace to get married. 

Work and such always put her second, and for 11 years she had to put up with me and chose to do so for some inexplicable reason. For the past 17 years we've ridden the ministry train all over the state of Louisiana.

Together. Always together.

Soon, five years tops, I will retire and plop myself into the recliner and she will still be there I pray, looking out for me in my worst times and finally being front and center in my best.

She is who I wish I was.

I heard a song yesterday that completely sums up who we are together:

Love's not a feeling, love's not convenient
But I know love can change your life
Love takes sacrifice, love cuts like a knife
Sometimes love will make you cry
Love's not easy but it's worth it

Love is a hunger, but love won't leave you empty
See it's a language of the heart
Love can steal your pride, but love won't let you ride
It takes everything you've got
Love's not easy but it's worth it

What you gonna do when the bottom falls out
And you're left with nothing
But your fear and your doubt to hold you, hold you?

Where you're gonna run when it's all on the line
And you're looking for someone
To save your life, to save your life?

Love can hear you, love can heal you
If you let it inside, oh, remember now
Love's not easy but it's worth it

  Francesca Battistelli - Worth It