Today

Hey, y'all, it's Jennifer.

Yesterday was my last day of no work for the summer, but Keith has been working all along except for our road trip. He called me this morning, like he does most mornings, after he'd already been working for a few hours. Today, the call included the announcement that he was stung by a wasp first thing in the morning. He was talking to me in a Benadryl-induced fog. Mostly, the day was fine except for the wasp sting.

Fast forward to this evening when I called after he was home from work. I hadn't seen him in two days, and that's a long time apart after spending five days together. I wondered what his status was, would we see each other tonight, how was his wasp sting and the rest of his day, and whatever else might come up. He was tired and still in the Benadryl fog. I asked if I could come see him, and he said it was fine but that he might not be much fun. We agreed that I'd pick up pizza on my way to his apartment and we'd watch one of his movies from NetFlix, and off I went.

Can I just tell you how glad I was to be headed his way?! I knew I didn't need him to be "much fun"--I just wanted to be with him. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself loving him more right then than I have before. I didn't know it was possible.

We ate pizza, talked about the day, watched the movie (Paul called and asked about the trip), and said good night. Keith speaks Spanish at work, so before he met me he spoke more Spanish in a day than English. Since I understand some Spanish, we speak it to each other on occasion. Tonight, Keith started going in Spanish, and I kept up with most of it; I even answered him some. Then, he continued on and on. He had that look on his face that tells me he's saying something really sweet, even though he lost me at some point. After several sentences, he asked if I understood, and we both laughed when I confessed that I didn't have a clue what he just said. He'd said so much that he couldn't remember it enough to translate it all, but I got the idea. I was right: it was sweet.

The words that kept running through my head were from James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows." Keith is a good gift in my life! Alan, you're so right! No one will ask at our wedding who gives us to be married to each other, but I am confident of this: God is the giver! The same way that I am convinced that faith is a gift from God, I'm also convinced that the ability to love is a gift as well. Today, I was overwhelmed with two gifts: Keith and a deep love for him.