Sometime a Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words

I have always loved my husband. And though I thought I could never love him any more than I did on the day I married him, I have learned that I was wrong. So very wrong.

Saturday night we had a conversation with a dear friend who recently married. It lead to us talking about some things that Nelson and I have had to work through in our thirteen plus years of marriage. We were asked for some advice and actually had some good advice to give.

We have worked through a few tough things over the years, as any married couple has. We are not so naive to think that we won't have more things come up but for the most part, we are getting better at doing the work.

We have both grown and changed for the better and it has brought us closer together. It has made me love and appreciate Nelson in ways I couldn't have on that day we stood in front of the altar and made our vows. Honestly, we promised those things and we meant them without fully understanding what they would entail. For the most part, we still don't know.

However, this does not make me afraid of the future. Instead I yearn for it. I'm thinking if it's this good now, we will be even better at 15, 25, or, God-willing 40 years of marriage.

We are a team in the best sense of the word. We work together in harmony. We know when it's our turn to score and when it's our job to assist. We celebrate each other's victories and we console each other in our defeats. We cheer each other on and we call each other on when necessary.

I am certain of my love for him. But sometimes I wish there was a way for me to let the world know how I feel. I know this is best done by our witness rather than our words. And yet, it's hard to gage how you're doing in an area you can't really measure.

In January, my sweet cousin got married and soon after sent me a link to the website with all the pictures from her wedding. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of them to peruse. Among them, deep in the pile, I found this one and fell in love with it.

I looked at it and I could see our love from the outside. It wasn't posed, it was just us. We were totally lost in the moment. Dancing. Laughing. Smiling in each other's arms. It is a moment, frozen in time, of us at our very best.

Suddenly, looking at that amazing photo, I thought maybe people can see it. Maybe they do see how much we love each other. At the very least, it is a wonderful reminder to me that what I feel is real. You can see it on my face.