Day 212: On My Knees to Love You

Since my brother and his family will be here for the weekend, I decided to keep 365 things simple: for the next few days, I’m going to pray for our marriage for my acts of love. Even though that’s simple, it’s one of the most important things I can do to love you and to help our relationship.

On Friday, then, I (literally) got down on my knees in our living room and sought help for our marriage from my heavenly Father. Nothing I prayed was new or exciting, but everything I prayed was important. I asked God to give me the grace I need to love you sacrificially, to give me a passion for you, to protect our marriage from infidelity, to make us people of integrity, and to do all this for his glory. In asking for these things, I’m not implying that I don’t need to do anything to bring them about. In fact, I anticipate doing some dang hard work.

I don’t expect that our marriage will be successful if we pray for it intermittently (though God can use many means to accomplish his ends). Instead, it’ll come from (among other things) daily and sincere cryings out to the only true God. In this light, I hope that prayer for our marriage doesn’t (simply) occur as an act of love through this blog, but is such a part of our lives that we can’t imagine living without it.

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Day 211: I Treasure You

I had no clue what to do for my act of love on Thursday. I wanted it to be interesting, but couldn’t come up with anything. Finally, I thought, “Who gives a crap if it’s interesting, as long as it shows Francine that I treasure her.” But that thought gave me an idea: to email you this:

That last picture is supposed to be of a ewe. I have no clue if it is.

UPDATE: You replied to my email message with this: “haha, first i thought it was eye gold lamb… haha thanks! I gold lamb you too! :0)” Maybe it is a lamb; if so, it can’t be a ewe.

Day 210: Baja Fresh Magnets

When we were in college and before we were dating, you pulled a sort of prank on me: you covered my car with a ton of refrigerator magnets from Baja Fresh. When I saw the magnets, I was completely confused. Eventually, though, I found out that you put them there, so I did the same thing to your car.

We still have those magnets (though only four). On Wednesday, I put them on our van door for you to discover. You thought that was cute.

Day 209: Camp Journal

While cleaning our room on Tuesday, I came across the journal that you started for us when we were counselors at Hume Lake Christian Camps, which was around the same time that we started dating.

You were a counselor for a week and I was a counselor for the week after you, but we weren’t there at the same time. This made us sad, because we wanted to be there together. So, you journaled every day in order that I could read about your experiences. Before you left camp, you left the journal with the camp staff so that they could give it to me when I arrived. You wrote these instructions inside: “You can only read one [entry] per day unless you get this after you’ve been here for a few days. But try to only read the ones that are the same day as it is for you . . . Miss you! Have fun!” I did as such and also wrote an entry for each day that I was at camp. When I came back, we read the entries together.

For my act of love, I left the journal on our table, along with a note that said, “We’ll always have Hume Lake.” I thought you would enjoy reminiscing on that experience.

PS: I read through some of the entries just now . . . good times.

Day 208: Foot in Mouth

Lately, it seems that I’ve been demanding and overly harsh with you. And from this you’ve taken it that I think you’re not doing much well. To counteract this, I decided to figure out something that you excel in, and then praise you for it. Your love for others immediately came to my mind. In this, you definitely excel—our girls are growing up in a home filled with love thanks to you and our neighbors and friends have experienced your love as well.

When I told you I was thinking about things you excel in, the first question you asked was, “How many did you think of?” I wasn’t sure what to say, because once your love for others came to mind, I stopped trying to come up with stuff. I should’ve explained that I only tried to come up with one thing and that you excel in a lot of things. Instead, I answered in one of the worst ways: “At least one.” It struck me at first as a clever answer that might get me out of a fix, since saying that I thought of at least one thing is consistent with thinking of 100 things. But as the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble. You interpreted my answer as you should have: as “Only one,” and took it to imply that “You only excel at one thing.” Sadly, this implication had the opposite effect than what I intended for the act of love; that is, it served to confirm your suspicion that I think you don’t do much well. Sheesh. You were gracious, though, and simply rolled your eyes and gave me a hug.

When I actually told you what I came up with, you appreciated my answer.

Day 207: Loving Others #3

After getting back from the church retreat last Sunday, our pastor gave us some of the retreat’s leftover food. Since it was a decent amount, we decided to share our wealth. For this Sunday’s act of love, then, I delivered some of the food to a family in our church.

Day 206: Homemade Starbucks

You love Starbucks, but neither of us loves to spend $5 for a cup of coffee. So instead of buying you Starbucks, I made it for you at home. I blended coffee, milk, coffee ice cream, and ice together, then poured the mixture into a Starbucks cup:

It was quite unfortunate that we didn’t have whipped cream on hand. But what the drink lacked in whipped cream, I made up for in sprinkles (though in truth, nothing can replace the former):

I even wrote your name on the cup to simulate authenticity:

I think I took this picture after I'd sampled some of the drink, which explains the fact that there's less coffee in the cup than in the other pictures.

Perhaps I should’ve given you the full-blown experience by calling out your name when your drink was ready.

Day 205: Hoodie Sweatshirt

For our entire marriage, you’ve talked about how you want a hoodie sweatshirt from each school that we’ve attended. I’ve always thought that was a fine idea, but those sweatshirts cost a lot (and I mean a lot).

On Friday, I went to a conference near our alma mater. So, I stopped in the campus bookstore and bought you your very own hoodie sweatshirt.

Day 204: Origami Heart Ring

On day 17, I made you this origami flower:

It’s not very good. To be honest, I think I hurried through it so I could move on to something else.

On Thursday, I made you an origami heart ring:

I took my time on this one and attempted to get the folds just right. You were very impressed with it, though you really shouldn’t have been. It was just a matter of following instructions and folding with precision.

Day 203: Fulfilling Your Needs

I brought back an act that (I think) I haven’t done in several weeks: I looked for a need of yours to fulfill, then fulfilled it. This time, I didn’t have to look far–I knew what to do as soon as I walked into our stinkin’ messy room. (It’s that way partly because we just got back from the retreat, partly because we’re busy, and partly because we’re lazy. Excuses, excuses . . .) I asked you if you would mind if I cleaned our room while you relaxed. You thought that would be fine. Although I didn’t finish, I made some good headway on it. It seriously needs some attention.