How to pick a life partner

I was thinking this weekend when I caught the worst barf bug in the history of barf bugs, Dang. I'm so lucky. I was reminded as I hinged at the waist over that porcelain portal, how once upon a time at 19 years of age, a college boy I was dating would hold my hair back when I was upchucking for other unseemly reasons. Did I think at the time that he would make a good life partner for this and other attributes? Probably? Did I also like to stare at the groove in his two front teeth and imagine kissing them for, like, hours? Entirely possible.

Fast forward 15 years and I am nearly ralphing out all of my organs on Saturday night, while on a work retreat in the Smoky Mountains. Our children, fast asleep in the bed next to ours in a cabin in the remote reaches of northeastern Tennessee. They were tired, their little limbs in frozen flail, because while their mama was tossing her cookies, their daddy had taken them on a latenight rendezvous into Pigeon Forge parts where go-karts and other amusements could be found. But there's more!  Their daddy was also among few--it has been reported--Asians for miles, in the face of a prolific supply of Confederate flags a-waving. That same good daddy also went on a reconnaissance mission for Gatorade the next early morning for his now-dehydrated and depleted wife.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's a good man. The same boy-man who once held my hair back as we sowed wild oats.

We said our vows ten years ago, in sickness and in health, in poverty and wealth, but we could never have envisioned how truly practical they would be. The equity and humility of it all, how it plays out in an endless day of babies and barf and bottles of purple Gatorade. I have no idea how I fortuned in to such an amazing partner, such a truly exceptional life mate who always seeks to make our lives better. I only know that this is what Grace looks like, walking around in spikey black hair and flip-flops, carrying sleeping children up a flight of stairs to their room in a lodge where I lay barfing. Grace is getting more than we deserve when all we can do is throw up all the other good things we've been given. Grace is showing up, waking up, carrying up a flight of stairs what is heavier than we think we are capable because we are more than just good deeds. Grace is about being more than we think we can be, Grace is about getting more than we give because so much has already been extended to us by a Perfect Love.

I'm so grateful for Lovey Loverpants, who shows me Grace. Amen.

photo credit: Garrett Nudd/Joy Nudd