Forty-eight Years
It has been easy the last couple years to believe that the world is getting worse. Shootings. Killings. War. Pain. Hurt. All of it seems to just plague our headlines. When one nightmare seems to be over, another comes. It is almost impossible to believe that there are any good people out there in the world; it is hard to believe that there is any person out there living a MUNDANE life and yet still in the flow of LOVE.
Well good thing is that if you look close enough, there are people who will remind you that LOVE still flows.
We were out with my aunt and uncle for dinner. It is honestly such a privilege to visit my family in a one-on-one setting. I flourish in those more intimate connection environments. We sat down and we were just focused on chatting, catching up, and connecting in a new way. We didn't notice the world around us, it was just fun to be with each other.
Then an older man tapped my love on the shoulder and we all looked over. "Is this your woman?" the man pointed at me. My love paused just long enough for me to understand that he was trying to decide if the man's next comment was going to be a good one or a bad one. "Yes."
"Well you, sir, are a lucky man. The way she looked over at you when you first sat down was the look for pure admiration and love. You are lucky to have someone who looks at you like that."
I blushed. I couldn’t even remember what I did when we first sat down, let alone remember how I looked at my love. This man's comment was the highest of compliments for me and he likely did not even know. I couldn't even respond.
"Wow, thank you sir," my love responded, "you are correct. I am super lucky to have her, three years now we've been married." Nothing makes me beam more than when my love thinks that I LOVE and admire him. He is the greatest thing in my world, honestly, he is my world. The truth is more likely that I am the lucky one.
The older man continued, "Well I can tell that you both have a great life, I would know! I have been married to that lovely woman [pointing at the table next to us] for forty-eight years now." This struck me. Not only did this man notice something that he didn't have to. Not only did this man say what he noticed when he didn't have to. He told us what he saw because he experienced it himself. He knew what LOVE looked like in the smallest of things from his everyday, MUNDANE life with his wife for the last forty-eight years. Wow. Even a marriage that long still acknowledges the LOVE between each other as if their wedding day was yesterday. Now that is rare, and that is the flow of LOVE.
It takes a life where you constantly look for LOVE, where you look for LOVE in the MUNDANE moments, where you look for LOVE when everything seems to be going the opposite way to be able to see it during dark moments. You have to call out LOVE, even MUNDANE LOVE, if you want to be able to see it when the rest of the world seems to be getting worse and worse. Because the truth is LOVE is always there; the difference is our habit to look for it.
Do you have a habit to look for MUNDANE LOVE?
