TODAY I WISH YOU LOVE


TODAY I WISH YOU LOVE

                This is a tribute to my wife Bonnie on her birthday. Yes she was born on the fourth of July and I won’t tell you her age, but I will give you a hint… it isn’t 86.

                I grew up as an actor. That is to say I was a preacher’s kid and as such appearances meant everything. No matter how one felt on any particular day, the show must go on.

                For the first 16 years of my life we were constantly moving from town to town in evangelism… and so I learned to live with the magic of first impressions. The shell of what I appeared to be on the outside was the one I had begun to fool myself with… all the while knowing that the real me on the inside was not worthy of the image I projected. In fact, I became afraid to engage in long term friendships for fear that once someone knew the real me, the jig would be up.

                When Bonnie came along, she was not fooled one bit by the outer shell. She irreverently peeled off the outer layer and fell in love with the real me…the rebel, the poet, the dreamer of impossible dreams. There was no fooling her, no chance to make myself look good in her eyes, except for the fact that she was madly in love with the real me.

                We bumped along through the first few years of our marriage, me being too full of myself to have a real capacity for true love, and her, chipping away at the facades with a mixture of humor and maybe a dose of sarcasm. But we had more fun and adventure than any two people deserve and slowly true love began to take root in my soul.

                Then came the Holy Spirit, who also is not fooled by outward appearances… and He also passionately loves the real us. And the Holy Spirit has the power to do something about that which is not genuine and real in us. He is making us authentic. He is smashing all of our pretenses and good intentions and replacing them with true love. After all, only that which is born of the Spirit has any eternal value.

                The Bible tells us that our God is a consuming fire. So when He created Adam and Eve He called them Ish and Isha, the Hebrew names for fire. When a man and a woman are joined together by God, each adds a letter so that they bear the name of God and the image of God. Without God in the marriage, they are like fires that consume each other, but with God in the marriage, they are lit with the fire of heaven to purify and to make them whole.

                In short I never dreamed that love could be like this. I never dreamed that two people could know the full truth about each other and be in love with that which is true. Only the Holy Spirit can cause two people to be madly in love with each other after so many years. We lay bare our souls before God and before each other and the result is oneness that brings joy and purpose and freedom.

                So Bonnie, today on your (not 86th) birthday I want to thank you for the years that you have given to me as the fire that makes me complete. Our love has changed us in ways that we could never have anticipated and for that I am thankful. So it is that on this 4th of July 2018 and to everyone who aspires to be real… Today I wish you love.

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