Love Like There’s No Tomorrow
The other day a friend put a reminder on Facebook that it’s only six months until Christmas! I love Christmas, even in the middle of July. But I tend to over-do it a bit on the Christmas decorations. Okay, so there was a tree in every room of our house this year, and it was glorious. But, dang. Every year when it’s time to un-decorate, I swear on all that is good and right that I will never, ever, over-decorate for Christmas again.
And every single December, when the Christmas music is going and the world seems to smell like apple cider and chocolate, I get so caught up in the magic of it all that I glitterize everything in my life that will stand still for 20 seconds.
As a married woman I often make plans in my mind that I don’t let my husband in on. I just expect him to KNOW, you know? I depend on him to REALIZE what I want and expect him to do. And, I woke up one morning shortly after Christmas just a few months ago, with expectations. I pictured us smilingly removing all signs of Christmas side by side, looking boldly into a new year together, filled with optimism for the future and a love for working toward a common goal. But things didn’t turn out exactly as I planned.
He got all of the storage boxes out for me. And then he started working at his desk, doing all kinds of church work that needed to be done. He sent emails and worked on calendars and made phone calls. He listened to good teaching. He did some reading. And all the while, I un-decorated my little heart out.
Really, I was fine with it until it came time to take the Christmas lights off of the gigantic Christmas tree that sat about three feet from his desk. The lights were the very last thing that I had to tackle after a long and weary day of un-decorating. I had finally gotten the kids in bed, and I was determined to get the ridiculous number of white twinkly lights off of the tree and into a storage box.
I yanked on what seemed like millions of strands of lights. I struggled on tiptoes to reach the top of the tree. I sighed. I groaned. I worked through the impossible labyrinth with a frown on my face and building resentment in my mind. I wasn’t happy. At one point I might have even announced how little fun that I was having.
He looked up with slight interest and a sympathetic nod. Yep, Christmas lights are the pits. And then he continued with his work.
Now, he had been sitting at his desk on his day off, working for a solid thirteen hours. And still, I considered getting mad at him for not helping me enough. I had no regard for the expectations that he had for this day.
It’s so hard to push aside selfish thinking when you’re married. It’s so easy to make every day about me. About how I feel. About what he should or shouldn’t be doing. I am so quick to feel entitled to everything in my marriage. But lately I’ve been having strange thoughts.
When I start feeling annoyed, when I’m tired and want to take it out on him, when I’m upset that he didn’t say or do exactly what I thought he should, I think about what I would do if this were the last evening that we’ll ever have together. I consider, just for a moment, what if this is the last time we’ll sleep close and warm together in our bed? I remind myself that life is short, and that if we died tonight I wouldn’t want stupid words spewed over tangled Christmas lights or overblown emotional displays over things that don’t matter in the least.
When these thoughts come, I feel all of the selfish, foolish, self-centered tendencies of my heart melt away. And I see the truth that I am deeply loved by a great, godly, kind, tender, passionate, funny, brilliant man. And then I wonder what I could possibly be annoyed about.
I did finally get all of those stinking lights off of our Christmas tree. I will try to remind myself not to over-decorate next December, but I know I’ll over-do it again. Chad will laugh. He loves it when I go overboard on Christmas.
God has given me a great love in this life. I hope we grow old and bent and wrinkly together. But, if we don’t, if somehow our love story is cut shorter than we’d like, I pray that we will be able to look back knowing that we loved like there’s no tomorrow. That we did life, and especially our marriage, as if we were working for God. And, I pray that we will point others to Christ by loving each other well, even on the non-glittery days.