My How Time Flies!

It seems just like yesterday. Walking across campus with my girlfriends, I could hear the voice on the loudspeakers waaaaaay over at the baseball fields where the University of Denver baseball team was playing. "Oh, there's Dan," I'd tell the girls, and they wouldn't believe I could tell who it was from so far away. Other people than Dan would announce for the games, you see, and there was no way of knowing ahead of time who the announcer would be -- so my friends were dubious. All they could hear was a voice on a loudspeaker, distant and garbled. But I knew when it was Dan; I'd bet them I was right, and I always was.

There's always been a connection there.  Even though I may have been all the way in the back rooms of our college newspaper offices, I knew when Dan walked in the front door. The hairs on the back of my neck would literally stand up. And my heart would pound. And I would wait for him to make his way back to where I was. (I know; it's disgustingly mooshy, kids, but it's true!)

But, here's the thing: eleven children and twenty-four years later, it's the same. I know when it's Dan calling my phone and very often pick it up to answer before it even rings. The door will open at the front of the house and I know it's him before I hear the sound of his feet on the floor. But then  I hear his distinctive voice, and there's no question it's him as he intercepts various small children -- teasing them and throwing them around a little --  Then I hear his footsteps in the hallway -- and I wait for him to make his way back to me. Which he always does. Dan has a way of kissing me with both hands on my cheeks that still makes my knees weak and my heart pound...  And I forget that we're not twenty-one years old any more. Who cares about the children and the laundry I'm folding, and the state of the economy and the world in general...

It's just me and Dan, the love of my life...

Followed by a caravan of children who want some more tickle fighting with Daddy and who want to know if it's snack time. So --alas! The spell may be quickly broken, but the kiss lingers in the air above everyone's heads.  And it's all good.

There's a place of stillness between two people who love each other where there is no interruption, no  past or future -- just a quiet knowlege of eternity. And a certainty of the rightness of it all.  Before Dan and I met an empty place waited in each of us for the other to fill. It was God's plan. And after we leave this earth, it will be to enter the eternity we've always worked toward together. One may leave first, but the other will follow. It's all good. It's God's plan.

I think it's this Breath of eternity that sent Dan's voice directly to my ear from the ball fields in college. And it's the same Breath that leads him to me wherever I might be hiding. And it's this Breath, blowing through our marriage that makes it possible to get through the stress of the big things, like bearing and supporting a large family, working through the issues of extended family relations, job loss, relocations, health problems... And the little dumb day-to day grievances, too --  like people who make coffee and dump coffee grounds all over the place,  and people who are so grumpy about sweeping up coffee grounds that they forget to appreciate the coffee...

But I digress... The point is that it's been a wild, amazing twenty-four years and the time has flown, but it's been good --  God is good. And I thank Him.  I am eternally grateful to have found this everlasting love.

Happy Anniversary, Dan. 

 I love you!

Howard Jones - Everlasting Love

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