6 Years

When I got home from work and church last night, Carter was at the grocery store getting milk. He came home, brought in the milk, and I asked if he needed to go back out to the car to bring in his music gear. He said he did, but when he came back in, he was bearing a bouquet of daisies, alstroemeria and miniature roses, not a guitar. He told me he knew he was about 12 hours early, but he wanted me to enjoy the flowers.

You see, today is the 6th anniversary of when he first told me he loved me. I said it back almost immediately (even though he assured me I didn't need to, but he just needed to say it to me), and I love him more today than I could have ever imagined six years ago.

{taken on the 6th anniversary of our first date, 10/10/09}

Before either of us uttered those three little words, we prayed this scripture, asking for guidance as to whether or not what we had and what we felt was indeed love.

1 Corinthians 13 (New Living Translation)

Love Is the Greatest

 ¹ If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;^[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. ⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
 ⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
 ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
 ¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

You see, I was 18. And Carter was 16. We were young.

But a little more than 5 years after we prayed that scripture, we recited vows that we had written together, based off these words Paul wrote so many centuries ago. And I still pray that my love for Carter will grow every day--that our love will be a love that we choose, and a love that brings glory to God. And that because of these things, it will never fail.

So, in my small corner of the blog world, I wish my wonderful husband a happy 6th "love" anniversary. With all my heart.