You know you have it okay when…
Dirt and I were at the store a while back, together. A rare occurrence, I usually go during mid morning if the girls realize they are about to run out of something and Daddy rode his motorsickle to work. Or if I am making repairs and can’t wait till afternoon. Dirt usually goes in on his way home from school on less-than-nice-motorsickle-riding days, to stock up. But this day we were in together.
The owner has know us for a long time and knows that we belong together, but the employee there at the time, a young fellow, wasn’t so sure.
When Dirt picked up on his hesitation in putting us together, Dirt says with a secret smile, “What’s the matter Mark? Doncha know this is my wife? Or did you expect me to be with a better lookin’ woman?”
“Uh, well, uh, um, I, uh,” sputters Mark.
I giggle and pet Dirt’s arm affectionately. This is after all the man who gave me the nickname “Big Bertha” when I was pregnant with our second. The baby, upon being born, was nicknamed Bert before she ever got her real name. So I am no longer surprised at his sillies. But back to the story at hand.
Mark looked nervously at me as I stood next to Dirt with a dreamy smile on my face, and the girls went about their browsing in the store for something else to spend their money on.
“I can’t believe she’s not hitting you! My woman would never stand for that,” Mark says to Dirt avoiding further eye contact with me. Dirt just continues to smile, slightly.
“Oh, I know he is just being silly and teasing you,” I say, feeling sorry for the young man whom Dirt has caught up in something. I feel that there is something a foot with all this, some more of Dirt and the Holy Spirit shenanigans, I don’t know for sure, but I follow his lead.
“I know where I stand with Dirt, I am very secure, I know he loves me greatly.” I say, “Mark, the last time I was in you told me you aren’t married to your ‘woman’ and the two of you are expecting your second child together soon. I didn’t say anything to you that day, but maybe you ought to remove her insecurity and marry her. Women weren’t meant to spend their years being insecure. (It makes ’em mean inside)”
What I was telling Mark wasn’t a stretch. I have over heard and have been told by others how Dirt will counsel other men, especially young men too scared to make a commitment, that he never thought as a young man that he could love his wife once she got old. He tells them how silly that all seems now, because he loves me way more than he thought he did when we began this life together. He loves me now way more than he thought it possible to love another human being. Dirt says he knows he will love me even more tomorrow because he has witnessed how much his love has continually grown.
But I don’t need to hear it from others or over hear Dirt say it, I feel it clear to my toes. I know my Dirt loves me, I know he lays down his life for me every day. In spite of my grey hair, wrinkles and extra weight, I feel gorgeous, and if I’m feeling insecure from the onslaught of the world I just hang out with Dirt and it goes away.
Well we left there that day with Mark shaking his head and the next fellow in line behind me grinning from ear to ear from hearing my little speech to Mark about marrying his “woman.” Maybe it was her dad.
Dirt was in to the same store a couple of days after that and Mark was helping him.
“Well Mark, you better be ready,” he says to him nonchalantly.
“What for?” Mark asks.
“Well, you gave my wife something to grab hold of and pray for. And when she gets to praying, look out, stuff happens.”
Why thank you dear for the compliment. But it is you who is the praying crazy man, I’m just along for the ride.
So all in all, Dirt did have a reason for being silly that day with Mark when he shocked him with the joke. I wouldn’t advise men to try going around and saying such things about their wives, it could give others the wrong impression and cause them to stumble. But the Holy Spirit used that little moment to set some things in motion.
I don’t know if anything great will happen in that young man’s life in the next few months before that baby comes and the momma is just a little farther away from the security God intended us girls to have. But praying never hurt nobody nohow.
