Faith Expressed In Love

Last night our boys, five and six, were exploring in my home office and found a box of love letters I had saved from my wife while we were dating.  The cute thing about this is we are high school sweethearts so most of the letters were written by seventeen year old Kati to sixteen year old me.  

At the top of the pile was a letter folded up and decorated with hearts and XO's.  And inside was a list that I haven't read since 2002.  It was the top fifty reasons why Kati was in love with me.  And it was incredibly sweet and nostalgic.  Some things on the list hadn't changed one bit.  Some things had.  And several of the items were habits which had simply been forgotten.

The list inspired me to create a new list.  A list of the 50 reason I love my wife after being together for twelve years and being married for eight.  So here it goes... 

50 Reasons Why I Love My Wife:

1. She makes me feel comfortable just being me
2. Affirms my best qualities, especially when I'm feeling insecure
3. Brings out the best in me
4. Extends me grace when I'm being a grumpus
5. Knows my entire story and loves me regardless
6. Wants to spend time with me more than anything else
7. She's my biggest cheerleader
8. She takes care of me
9. Celebrates when I win
10. Spectacular mom to our two boys
11. Has an entrepreneurial spirit that inspires me
12. Inspires me to be a better man
13. Inspires me to be a better father
14. Keeps me eating food that's good for my body... :)
15. Helps me discern direction
16. Has an incredible sense of humor
17. Has stuck with me through every tough situation since we were 16
18. I think she is the most beautiful woman on earth
19. Inspries me to get active and stay healthy
20. Picks me up when I'm feeling depressed
21. She thinks I'm sexy, in what I'm sure is a goofy kinda way
22. Kisses me goodbye
23. Can usually beat me at Othello
24. Is so impressively smart!
25. Is incredibly creative!
26. I absolutely love the way she laughs
27. She gets my unique sense of humor
28. She thinks I have so much talent
29. She absolutely loves Jesus
30. She can problem solve and think strategically like nobody's business
31. She knows me better than anyone else on this planet
32. She makes a mean pillow fort
33. She absolutely loves long car trips together
34. I love to dream with her about the future
35. I love her hugs
36. I love when she wants to hold my hand
37. She feels passionately about issues that are important to her
38. Makes coffee for two every morning
39. Keeps the family running, especially in the morning
40. Loves to watch our favorite shows together at night
41. Has an incredible smile when I surprise her with a gift
42. She loves to dance, and doesn't laugh at me when I try to join
43. Honestly wants to bring out the best in people
44. Is not afraid of a challenge
45. Loves me despite my many faults
46. Always wants me to come to bed when she does
47. She cuddles up next to me to keep warm
48. Always values my opinion
49. I love that we own a business together that we have built from a dream over lunch
50. I love her because she is honestly my other half.  I'm not complete without her.

I can honestly say I love my wife more today than the day I married her.  I love her with a love that is so much deeper than the butterflies we used to get holding each other's hands when we were seventeen  But I admit it was fun bringing back a few of those flutters with this found reminder.

PS.  Let the record show that this letter is the reason I'm a pack rat.

This week our community lost an extraordinary young man after a tragic bike accident.  How do I even begin to describe him?  Sean Stanton was the type of kid everybody wanted to know with his quick wit and easy smile. He was an incredible friend, and always made people feel relaxed when he was around. I had the extreme privilege of having him as part of our youth ministry family and he was a member of our student leadership team.

I remember fondly evenings in my living room with the Stanton boys, dreaming about how to build a better ministry, Sean jokingly (or maybe not so jokingly) insisting that attractive interns were the key to reaching his generation for Christ.

There are so many thoughts and emotions that arise after suffering a loss like this.  How could this happen? Sean was robbed of so much life. So many dreams and so much potential that will never be lived out. There's something incredibly unnatural about the passing of someone so young.  But I have to remind myself that all death is unnatural.  Death wasn't a factor in the garden and death is a symptom of us living in a broken world. Situations like this give us yet another reminder of this fact.

But as believers we have an incredible promise through Christ. A promise that this broken world is not all there is.  A promise of an eternity that is so much better than we can imagine.  A promise that the present sorrow that we are experiencing pales in comparison with the glory to come!

Sean's faith was a natural part of him. He carried it with him wherever he went and with whoever he was with.  I have complete confidence that Sean is with his Savior experiencing perfect joy in heaven.  Many of us who were praying for Sean right after the accident were praying for a miracle, for God to heal his broken body and keep him with us.  And while God is more than able to heal, I believe Sean experienced healing in a whole different way. In an eternally superior way. This week Sean experienced perfect healing. And when he left this world, he went to be in a place of full completion.  A place with no more tears, no more sickness, no more death.  We now grieve, not for Sean, but for us. For his family, his parents, brothers and sisters, and friends, who will miss him more than we can even begin to imagine. 

In my role working with students, most of this week has been processing Sean's passing with many of his friends. There's a hard lesson in this significant reminder for any young person that we aren't invincible.  That life is so fragile and our time will pass like a vapor.  A reminder that we should embrace each day with joy and every relationship as an incredibly valuable gift. With Sean's passing I'm reminded that I should take time to smile more and embrace life, traits he seemed to exhibit so easily. And in doing so, we honor Sean.  We honor his memory and continue his legacy by holding tightly to the light he brought to our lives and sharing it with others. 

I cannot even begin to imagine the grief his parents and siblings are experiencing. As a church family, a group that isn't specific to any particular congregation in central Michigan, its now our responsibility to care for, listen to, cry with, and love the Stantons as we say goodbye to an incredible young man.

I can remember vividly sitting in my room as a senior high student, getting worship sheet music for the first time, and learning Here I Am To Worship on the guitar.  In the midst of me figuring out the chords to a song I had sung a hundred times, for some reason it hit me anew, the magnitude of the words I was singing.

I had always enjoyed worship songs, but hadn’t ever put much thought into the what the lyrics said.  Lyrics like “light of the world, you stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see”.  The imagery of a God who was so much bigger than I could even begin to fully appreciate, coming down to earth for me.  I remember being broken in that moment, alone in my room.

I began to see worship as more than just an obligatory social activity at every church service.  Instead, viewing it as communication with the creator.  Speaking truths about his goodness and mercy.  At the very core, the songs we sing are a prayer in which we lift up our admonitions and requests, and being a musical guy, the emotional tie of music made it all the more powerful and joyful.

To date, its easy for me to sometimes forget this and get stuck in the rut of obligingly singing our three song set on Sunday morning because that’s just what you do.  In these moments, its so important to look back to the source, and think about the God we are worshiping, and immediately realize that in light of Him, I can’t help but worship.