30 years passes in a moment

Thirty years ago I went out on a "date" with a young woman who worked at the newspaper that I was employed at as News Editor. She worked in the "backshop," putting strips of newspaper (as it was done then) together into a front page, etc. I had recently returned from a bad year as sports editor of a couple of newspapers in Reno, Nev.

I was tired and I didn't know exactly what I was doing in news (it was what was open) when I met Mary.

We made each other dinner on our first date. We took our kids to the fair on the second. We've never been apart much for the past 30 years.

This morning she's having a procedure to make sure that something they removed from a colonoscopy earlier this year was removed in its entirety and that there was no cancer. My prayers are with her as I wait in the room that has seen good news and bad for many, many years. The furniture is worn at best and the carpet is in dire need of, er, something.

But as she undergoes the procedure, I sit. And as I sit, I ponder. And as I ponder it occurs to me that someday she and I will part for that great moment when we see the one who loves us and created us. Whether I pass out of this life first or she does, we will meet again in glory. I believe that. I believe that we will not necessarily be husband and wife, for if I read scripture well enough Jesus tells us that isn't a needed condition.

But I believe love passes and surpasses all. I believe we will see each other again. And I believe the smiles that will rest well on our faces will be the size of the Grand Canyon. I believe that.

Mary has been everything to me, will be everything to me and I have never not loved her with all my heart. She stood by me when I was in the very hospital we now sit in, facing a life struggle that I couldn't get past without The Lord. I have never treated her as regally as I should have, but she takes the blows and arrows of my random stupidity and smiles all the while. She lifts me when I am down, and she pulls me back when I've been raised too far.

She is my rock, even while we worship the Rock together.

When she comes out of sedation, we will go on with a life dedicated to bringing Jesus to others. We know little else. Our prayers, two of us together, are that this life, this church, be everything we can possibly be in the future.

It is the way we live.

Thirty years ago today, we ate together. Today we live a life together.

She is the love, literally, of my life. 

And what a life is is and has been.