Just A Little More Love

In the year 2000, February 14th fell on a Monday.

The next day, February 15th, my Valentine (who didn't know he was my Valentine) turned 19-years-old.

And the next day, February 16th, my (unsuspecting) Valentine entered the MTC to prepare for his two year mission in Norway.

"What a happy, wonderful, exciting thing," I remember reminding myself (again and again and again). But as sincere as those thoughts were, they didn't keep the sinking anticipation of "two-whole-years!" from settling deep into my Valentine's Day heart.

I remember waking the next day, Wes's birthday, and donning an undesireable shroud of sadness. I desperately fought the feeling. "I have no right to feel this sad!" I remember thinking. "I've only known the boy for one eyeblink of a semester! We have no mutual commitment to each other. He is only barely aware of my existence!!" I eventually dropped to my knees, praying that my kind Heavenly Father would help me to GET A GRIP!

Later that morning I sat in The Marriot Center awaiting Elder Holland's Tuesday devotional address. I remember offering another silent, pleading prayer: "Please let me get something helpful from this speech!"
Enter Elder Holland.
Cue devotional address, "How Do I Love Thee?"

That's right folks, 45 minutes of "love, and romance, and marriage" sounding from that authoritative pulpit. It might have been murder. But to my hopeful little heart, it was a miracle. Just what I'd prayed for. I clung to Elder Holland's words during the first several (eternal) weeks of Wes's absence:

"The prophets tell us that true love 'beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things' (1 Corinthians 13:7).... Bear up and be strong. Be hopeful and believing."

I think you can all accurately guess how I interpreted those words. Now, please do not believe me naive enough (even at 18) to consider Elder Holland's message a guarantee of Wes's and my future wedded bliss (although such thoughts did dance through my head on occassion). It did, however, help me to shed the sadness and to breathe in a little hope.

The hoping payed off. I now find myself five-years-married to that handsome boy I used to day dream about. And I still read Elder Holland's talk.
I still find peace in the knowledge that true love "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, [and] endureth all things."

I still, often, need the reminder to "bear up and be strong," to "be hopeful and believing," in the face of life's uncertainties.
I still adore, applaud, and appreciate this insight:
"There are lots of limitations in all of us that we hope our sweethearts will overlook. I suppose no one is as handsome or as beautiful as he or she wishes, or as brilliant in school or as witty in speech or as wealthy as we would like, but in a world of varied talents and fortunes that we can't always command, I think that makes even more attractive the qualities we can command--such qualities as thoughtfulness, patience, a kind word, and true delight in the accomplishment of another."

(I will have it noted on the record that my true love is a master of those commandable, but oft neglected, attributes. Don't know if he picked up "As you wish" from his hollywood namesake, but my sweet Wesley is as kind as they come.)

So...here's a Happy Birthday to my handsome husband! (who might temporarily shelf his kindness in order to kill me for posting all of these pictures. But it's worth my life, don't you think?)