Safe to shore

We've walked the rocky shore, my hand in yours, and yours is steady and steadies mine. In your embrace, I climb up from the dark abyss to reality, rappelling up on your love and your brokenness over my despair. You've been my strong fortress in times of war, my adviser in times of conflict, my voice of reason in times of foggy confusion. You are my peace, my warrior, my prince, my passion, my pride, my constant source of those glittering glimpses of joy on a joyless landscape.

It's the 11th Valentine's Day, and we've already given each other our gifts. Utilitarian givers we are, you give me wool and I give you a beard trimmer and we smile like kids in a candy store. There is no fading of this love, only a deepening saturation of trust and truth and triumph over trouble. The naysayers are long gone and have forgotten our 17 day engagement. When you know, you know - and neither of us were wrong about each other. At least I hope you would say the same, after cancer, career changes, church pain, depression, and all those days spent at our daughter's hospital bedside praying fervently for healing.

Are you a saint? Can an ordinary man be a minister unfailing to his broken other half? You hold out Words from Scripture like pearls in a black velvet box. You are my record-keeper, remembering all the good times when I am drowning in a sea of amnesia. You draw me back to shore, the shore where every stone is balanced perfectly on it's neighbor, like the memories balanced between good and bad. We lie down together in the curve of the agate earth, listen to the waves crash in toward us in the dark. We are safe on shore, our stories tangled up in each other like your legs and mine nesting against the beach. You've reeled me in again from disaster, and I lean hard on your warm shoulder.

My haven, my heaven on earth, my husband.

I don't like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear

The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake

It's the house telling you to close your eyes

Some days I can't even trust myself

It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back

Well tell her that I miss our little talks

Soon it will be over and buried with our past

We used to play outside when we were young

And full of life and full of love.

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right

Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

Don't listen to a word I say

The screams all sound the same

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is the ghost of you.

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go we'll meet again soon

Now wait, wait, wait for me

Please hang around

I'll see you when I fall asleep

~Of Monsters and Men, Little Talks~

As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come..." (excerpted from Song of Solomon 2:3-12 ESV)