What Makes Me Love Him?

thoughts about my husband on our upcoming 17th anniversary...

I believe in the providential hand of God! I was going to meet and marry Brad Irons one way or another-- God made sure of that!

I met Brad while attending the University of Mary Bardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas. A small, hole-in-the-wall Texas town that you will miss if you blink on the highway. Brad was the editor of the college newspaper and I was working as a staff photographer and writer...(wow, the more things change the more they stay the same! LOL!)

But that had not been the original plan for either of our college careers. While developing photos in the dark room one day we began discussing our journalistic goals and dreams. I told him about my lost opportunity of going to the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Even with the scholarship they offered me for Journalism-- I could not afford to go. Brad looked at me in sort of a stunned silence. The School of Visual Arts? In NYC? That was the same school Brad had been accepted to-- the very same semester I had been accepted to go! Now if that were not "coincidental" enough-- the school was very exclusive and quite difficult to get into. Less than 1% of their applicants got accepted...and that 2 of us were standing in the same dark room, working on the same newspaper, in a podunk little Texas town was more than a MIRACLE in my book!

YES...God had major plans for Brad Irons and I to cross paths...and I am personally glad that it happened in TEXAS and NOT New York! You can take the girl out of Texas, but just can't get TEXAS out of the girl!!

Not only did Brad and I have a love of journalism, but we also had a love of drama. I was thinking this morning back to a musical I did in high school called The Apple Tree. It was a musical comedy based on "The Diaries of Adam & Eve".

In one of the songs, Eve waxes sentimental and sings:

"What makes me love him?
It's not his singing.
I've heard his singing.
It sours the milk.
And yet...
It's gotten to the point
Where I prefer that kind of milk."

I know...a funny song to be floating through my head this morning-- but there is was.

WHAT MAKES ME LOVE HIM??

So I started to think about that...

It is not as easy an answer as one would think!

There are a gazillion reasons I adore him:
He is funny
He is an excellent father
He is a wonderful provider
He is a man of good moral character
He is a hard worker
...and the list could go on forever....

But if tomorrow he stopped being funny, I would still love him.

If tomorrow he ceased to be a good father, I would love him still.

If tomorrow his ability to provide for us went away, my love would not.

If tomorrow he had a failure of moral character, my love would NOT evaporate.

If tomorrow he became a couch potato, my love would still exist...

So what makes me love him??

Maybe it really is just the simple fact that Brad is a gift that the Lord has given me, and a gift that I cherish deeply. I've committed to spend the rest of my life with him and to honor and respect him... and maybe that is the only reason I need to LOVE him. All the other reasons I could think of are reasons I adore him-- but they are not reasons I love him.

I think my love is completely based in the commitment I made before the Lord to LOVE the gift He has given me... and it has been a journey of good times & bad, sickness & health, better times & worse times, in short... the abundance of life experiences.

Every other reason is superficial at best. Much like a house built on a foundation of sand...the tests of time will wear on the superficial reasons for loving someone... but a firm commitment founded in Christ...rooted and grounded...THAT can stand the storms, the Katrinas, and anything that hell can throw at us.

I have never loved anyone as much as I have loved Brad. I have literally spent over half of my life with him. We met when I was 19 years old. We have 17 years of marriage and 10 children together (7 with the Lord.)

We have faced some difficult and life-changing circumstances in our marriage from death of children to house fires to chronic illnesses and major medical issues-- but even none of these issues can overshadow what God first brought together waaaaay back in the beginning at a small college in Belton, TX.

I love you so much more now than I ever could have known back then. I would not have traded our life together for a "picture perfect" life. Hey, I like our sense of ADVENTURE!

I love you, Brad! I look forward to the rest of our lives being even better than the past 17 years! The best is yet to come!

Love, Dawn