There is a young couple, engaged to be married. Often they sit and discuss what their life will be like together. They are excited to be married, yet they recognize they don’t fully understand all that marriage will entail. So the young man says to his future wife, “I love you so much. I want to love you even more. How can I love you more?”
Excited about her future husband’s desire to show her love (and motivated to love him back equally), she writes him a letter every day from that day until their wedding. Sometimes the letters are short poems. Other times, they are deep explanations of her family history, how she saw her own parents, and how certain things made her feel.
Fast forward 6 years…
This man and woman have now been separated for 2 years. He is sitting in a counselor’s office wondering what went wrong. “When did our marriage fail? Where did we go wrong? I want to love her but I don’t know how. And I feel like she is so distant that I can’t even ask.”
The counselor says, “I spoke with her. She wants to be reunited. But she has felt unloved for the past 6 years. She doesn’t think you want to love her.”
The man says, “If she tells me how to love her, I will do everything I can to show her.”
At that moment, the counselor pulls out a stack of papers. It was every letter the wife wrote during the year of their engagement. The man stared at them silently.
Moments later, the wife walks into the room. She looks at the man and says, “I still want to be your wife. Do you want to be my husband?”
Joyfully he leaps up, wraps his arms around her, and weeping he says, “If you will take me back. Yes! I promise to love you.”
From that day forward, every morning, the man woke up before his wife. Every morning, he would pull out one of her letters and read it. And re-read it. He was amazed at all the different ways she expressed her love. She had shared her desires, hopes, and dreams for their life together. With every letter, he felt like he was falling in love with her all over again.
As the day dawned, his wife would wake up and join him downstairs. He would greet her with a kiss, her coffee made and waiting (a sign of true love), and a confident smile on his face, because he knew how to love her that day.