February 15 – “Our Valentine’s Day”

We’ve been married well onto forty-two years now.  At least we will be, come June.  So our Valentine’s Days might look a little different from some other folks’.  We exchanged gifts this year.  Chris somehow snuck around on the days that I was outside the house, and she made me a bag for my uke music and tabletop music stand.  The outside has an array of guitar-ish stringed instruments on it amidst musical notes.  The inside lining shows a collection of staffs and chord markings and even finger markings for plucking (an obvious nod to my frustrations with learning just such musical theory details).  Everything fits into it perfectly.  Nice job by my sweetheart there. 

The gift I gave her was one I have been working on for some time in secret as well.  It was a carving.  I know.  No surprise there.  But she still seems to like them.  I made kind of a reverse image of what someone might carve into a tree, except there was no tree.  It was a heart that intertwined within itself like a knot, with the initial “C” on one end and “K” on the other.  That piece then stood up next to a second carving of the letter “V”.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for family.  I probably should have started with a thicker piece of wood so I could make it look like intertwined rope, but, hey, you use what materials you have, right?  Kind of like our whole Valentine experience together all these years.  We have learned to be at peace with each other and with whatever we have been blessed with around us. 

And speaking of using what materials we have been blessed with … we even went out for an early Valentine’s supper at Salsa’s using a gift card from some friends at church.  Mexican food is Chris’ all-time favorite.  The waiter was a sneaky one, though.  When he took our order he asked questions that involved choices – did Chris want red sauce or chili con queso, or did she want pico, for example.  Little did we know (we don’t eat out there all that often) that every choice he offered involved an extra charge.  He failed to mention that little detail.  No doubt a trick they teach in server school to up the total bill so the tip will be larger.  Oh, we didn’t withhold a tip or anything.  He was just lucky we had enough cash on us to cover the extra charges and give a tip. 

When we got home we settled back into our evening routine.  Chris started working on a quilt.  I checked on the teaching for Sunday, then joined her in the den to watch some TV.  You know what?  I love that woman.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 says, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”

Father, thank you for the incredible gift you gave me in my wife.  She puts up with a lot of my wacky antics, yet still insists that she loves me.  Amen.