My Dearest Love, My Best Friend, My Husband,
I remember when we were dating I knew I loved you deeply. I could not hold it in my heart any longer. As I was getting out of your car, I leaned back in with courage overflowing and said three sweet words that were of utmost significance to me, “I love you.”
My heart was overwhelmed when you received what I said and reciprocated how much you love me. We were on the same page and we were eager to grow in our love.
We have spent the last ten years getting to know each other well. Our personalities could not be more different, our strengthens and weaknesses could not be more opposite, yet through the years we have helped each other grow.
You have helped me grow, into the woman I am today.
Our differences have brought us close together, they have led us to argue, and they have revealed things in this life that we may have missed had we never said yes to our relationship. As friction, heat, and pressure are used to shape and mold many different types of material, God has used you and the friction of our differences to shape my character…and I could not be more appreciative.
I love you.
1. I love you because your knowledge of God challenges me to know Him as well as you do.
2. I love you because you are out going and you have always encouraged me to get out more and savor the opportunities to build relationships and collect experience.
3. I love you because you are accepting of others and willing to love the unlovable, a quality I wish I had more of and because of your example I do have more of.
4. I love you because you are logical, thinking through the reality of our circumstances, diminishing the irrational chaos I tend to stir up often.
5. I love you because you are discerning. You can see what is happening around us, as well as what is happening in people’s hearts, a gift you use to encourage with words that are anointed and necessary to be heard. You see what’s really happening instead of assuming, which has helped me give others, and you, the benefit of the doubt.
6. I love you because you are energetic and have a strong work ethic, which inspires me to serve when laziness tries to creep into my heart – a battle I fight daily.
7. I love you because you are generous, always considerate and obedient to give to God and to give to others, something I wanted to justify by circumstance instead of trust. Your leading in this area enlarged my heart in faith, believing in God’s provision and miracles.
8. I love you because you extend grace to me, something I thought I knew because I knew God as a young girl, but never fully grasped until we were in the trenches of marriage.
9. I love you because you speak confidently and with authority, a quality I envy, but also a quality I am gaining because of how you teach me and train me through your example.
10. I love you because you are faithful, a strong man unwilling to bend beneath the burden of fear. In times of high anxiety you encourage me through God’s word, you comfort me and remind me to have faith too.
I love you, forever and for always.
Sincerely,
Your Wife
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17
~ Prayer ~
Dear Lord,
I pray for the woman reading this right now. I pray she would be inspired to consider how the differences between her and her husband may contribute to their characters in ways they knew acknowledged before. May You inspire her heart to share with her husband all the reasons why she loves her husband and his differences. Give her courage to get the words out of her heart. I also pray that her husband receives and reciprocates with his own reasons of why he has great love for her. May this be an opportunity to connect in marriage in a deeply intimate way for them in Jesus’ name AMEN!
~ Challenge: Embracing Differences ~
Don’t just tell your husband that you love him today. Tell him some of the reasons you love him.
~ Virtual Marriage Retreat ~
Don’t miss my team members’ posts on embracing grace in marriage. You can find them here:
Darlene Schacht TimeWarpWife.com
Courtney Joseph WomenLivingWell.org
Sheila Gregoire ToLoveHonorAndVacuum.com
Lisa Jacobson Club31Women.com
Ashleigh Slater AshleighSlater.com
