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Carol and I offer this glimpse into our 48-years of marriage to remind you that Jesus heals all wounds. Don’t give up! ———–

SHE SAID:

Love isn’t always normal.

You romanced me with nothing. You drove an old pickup. You lived in a studio apartment. But I said “I do” to a boy with a father’s heart. I said “I will” to the boy who loved me—still a little girl.

My father hadn’t abandoned me as a child. No. But his strange “caring” confused me. My gangly legs and puffy black hair seemed to invite him to abandon his character. His gentle eyes tangled my emotions, and Mom refused to see it. Or she wouldn’t believe it. I grew into my teens searching for a touch that felt clean. Dad’s fingerprints left burns on my soul. 

I married you, hoping that your touch would feel different. Disappointed, I kept searching—until I woke up one day and realized that this boy’s love was clean like I imagined a father’s love should be. And the boy cried over my burns, and his tears eased my confusion. My father-husband treated me like I was a healthy woman and wife—and that is who I have become.

The miracle lay in my long search and in the constancy of love. While I searched, his God and Father erased the soiled fingerprints on my soul, and now only clean ones remain.    

HE SAID:

I had no idea that a dad leaves fingerprints on a child’s soul. The moment that I said “I do” I became the image of what my 17-year-old bride’s father never was. Her imagined father was protective. Respectful. Tolerant. Restrained. Willing to nurture a little girl until she was grown.

At 17 years old, I didn’t have a clue how to be these things. But somehow I knew that, before being a husband, I had to be a father.

Had I been able to see the pain in her soul, it would have been easier. But God was healing the wounds in her heart left by careless fraud. I loved the little girl, then the young woman—and now a wonderful grandmother.

It was worth the worries. Worth the wondering. Worth the waiting. And our grandchildren will know only respect and love — the fingerprints we leave behind.