Rugged Beauty

You brought me flowers today.  With roughened hands…from labors years.  Once manicured. Tended.  Cared for.

Now, living sacrifices of surrender…

Love put not in words, but acts of service. Gifts of endearment.

The hours of hands labor.  Early mornings before sun wakes and the world arises…

Hands with worn away layers, callouses from life’s lament.

Yet, you still love.  Nineteen years later…Hand’s putting bread on our table, making hope for things needed…surrendered.

Without flattering words or empty promises movies are made of….Without fairy tales or gallant white horses….

Just us. 

Clinging to tattered things mended together…Relying on a Savior…to keep watch & protect us.

Folded hands on praying knees.  So grace pours out.  As we stand at the threshold…. Of beauty. Beauty in every form.  In our home.  In our children.  In the truth of Our Story.  How when people look at us…they know…it’s all Him.....it couldn’t be us. 

Wearing that symbol around your finger…

Of love eternal.  Days remembered. Wedding dress. Loves first kiss. Promises made.  Covenants unbroken.

Each day, that band of gold representing…Long, hard pressed…perseverance…of

Forgiveness. Tenderness long after wedding bliss. Seeing each other as His…the other better than ourselves.  Looking to Christ, The Sacrifice…choosing faith…laughter…life.  Uniting as one, regardless of how we feel…keeping covenant strong through walks, long talks, quality time…Prayer.  Despising the world & how its bets are against us. Knowing…God is good.  His hope will sustain us.

Those hands…cradling babies exposed. Holding ninety-year-old’s on their way to dementia. Vessels used well to feed the poor. Bringing hope.  Opening a door…for anyone in need.  Carrying groceries of a stranger. Walking the needy across the street.  Throwing balls, Frisbees, footballs to our children…Casting fishing line into our pond during summers season.

And yet, they stand there, grasping a gift. Hands that keep giving and giving and giving.

I look at you…and at those flowers.  More beautiful than store bought roses.

Picked in barn boots, noon day shadow, t-shirt.  Randomly from our field.

And I fall in love again.

Such beauty in those rugged hands.

The one’s I hold, have loved, & cling to.  The one’s I hope & pray to grow old with.

The one’s standing before me….
                           Holding flowers.