A Love Modeled


Mom and I had a heart to heart tonight (which basically means we just chattered here at home like crazy for 2 hours, even though we talk on the phone at least 3 hours a week, I'd wager). She told me about her Valentine's Day.

My mom and dad have been married 21 years, and their relationship has been a STRONG model for the way I would like mine to be. They have always been faithful to love each other, even through money hardships, moving across the country, moving from about 8 different apartments, and raising 4 children to love Jesus.

This year has been especially hard when it comes to money, since dad quit his second job and things always seem to break down JUST when we don't have the money to replace or fix them. Right before V-Day, our refrigerator (an ANCIENT appliance, at least 20 years old) and our vacuum cleaner (at least 21 years old. lol) AND our computer (only about 2 years old) decided they didn't want to be of service any longer.

Money came in, happily enough, and they found a great deal on a fridge. It was supposed to be delivered on Saturday, Valentine's Day. The day was going to be hectic for my mom, since she was going to a brunch for our church's elder's wives, taking my brother to a basketball tournament, returning to the brunch, and cleaning out our old fridge and having the new one delivered.

She woke up that morning to see a little gift bag on her dresser with a red rose stuck inside of it. My dad had emptied a bag of little candy hearts into the gift bag and had set a Winnie-the-Pooh children's valentine in it saying that he loved my mom.

She gets a phone call an hour or so later telling her to check another place in the house where he had hidden another gift bag, this time with hair clips and another rose and another valentine.

Mom continued to receive phone calls periodically throughout the day (which is a big deal, since dad never really has time to call from his mail route) and my little brothers (8 and 11 years old) are getting really excited about helping mom find the gifts with each phone call.

(to tell the quick ending of the story, at the end of the day she had a dozen roses and a bunch of little fun girly gifts.)

At the brunch she was at, one of the "sharing" questions was "In your life, how have you felt loved and what is a way love has been modeled?" The women began to answer about their mothers (a good subject) but my mom just didn't think that was what she wanted to say - she and her mom aren't THAT close, and she's been married longer than she was unmarried, so she associates love with my dad.

Then it dawned on her to tell this story. I almost started crying as I watched her eyes tear up at the fact that she got to see her husband model to her sons the way that he loved their mommy. That wasn't even my dad's intention to begin with, but God definitely worked it that way.


The end. *warm fuzzies*