His Winter Gift

Love is blind or at the very least somewhat bewildered.

Shortly after we became engaged Andre found himself totally lost in a dreamy reverie of love while stopped at a red light.

So intense was his happy fog that he blissfully sat thru multiple transitions from red to yellow to green to red to yellow to green. Only after the irate motorist behind him stood on the horn did he sheepishly awake and scurry along.

After 37 years of marriage I’m quite sure Andre doesn’t sit thru red lights contemplating his bride’s flawless beauty. And I now see a few chinks in the shining armor of my gallant knight.

Ecstasy and Agony. We’ve had our hearts and flowers soaring the heights but also our tempest, weathering frightful storms and battles which have left us with a few scars and some deep wrinkles and more than a few grey hairs.

Nevertheless the bond holds and the glue that binds us is strong.

Wherever we go, whatever we do

We’re gonna go through it together

We may not go far but sure as a star

Wherever we are it’s together

Our wedding rings symbolize a three-fold cord. The image comes from a phrase in Ecclesiastes 4 which says that a “triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

Figuratively our “three-fold cord” includes both of us as two strands intertwined with the third, the Lord God.

Audacious as it might seem, we’ve asked the Lord to join us and guide us in our life journey together. He gives us spiritual resources to cope with and surmount all sorts of trials and provides the glorious hope of a miracle when things look very dark and the tempest rages and the bond stretches toward the breaking point.

It is what I call His Winter Gift.

In the Spring of it all

What does one know of love?

Everything is vibrant—

Alive,

The newness is enough.

 But what of Winter?

Will warm fires burn within

Shutting out the cold?

 

Only if our Springtime Creator

Will build a fire

Where there is no match to light one.

It is His Gift.

Especially on cold, winter days.

 ©1976 Barbara A. LaTondresse – All rights reserved.

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“Together (Wherever We Go)” -music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, written for the musical play Gypsy in 1959 based on the book by Arthur Laurents–Gypsy: A Memoir. New York City: Harper, 1957. Print.

Images courtesy of:

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