Real Love is a Tangled Necklace

Christian Life & Theology, Dating & Marriage

I sit, in stilettos, at my kitchen table.

My husband of almost three years is dropping my daughter off with my aunt so we can attend a classical concert. He took her early so I could get ready for our date, so here I am – lipstick, hair and heels.

He doesn’t know I’m writing this.

As I picked out jewelry for our date it caught my eye. Hung carefully on my jewelry stand, its formerly knotted chain painstakingly untangled, was the necklace he gave me on my birthday four years ago. I’d asked him to untangle it.

It might seem like a small request, and I guess it is. It’s just another thing for his ever-increasing list: talk to our mortgage broker, fix the dryer’s heating element, find out why the dryer we just sold isn’t working, put a new engine in the car. Physically put a new engine in the car.

His life is taken up with us. He works, comes home, and works more. And I ask him to untangle necklaces.

So when I got back from the gym this morning, there he was – half-dressed for work in a button down shirt – bending over the necklace. Gently, carefully, painstakingly untangling the knotted chain. Patiently working through each knot. Taking thought for the small and insignificant of my life before tending to the important of his.

And I thought: Love bears all things.

Yes, love is patient. Love is kind. But in those final words of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Paul preaches the power of love – for it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

It is no wonder love – in its truest, purest form – can never fail.

The diamonds sparkled on my dresser the same way they sparkled when he first opened the box. I close my eyes and I’m there again –  standing on that street in downtown Charlottesville, his eager eyes waiting for my response. “It reminded me of you,” he smiled. That love in his eyes, it’s still the same – the same love untangling those knots four years later.

Our love is different now. It’s messier, harder, sometimes louder. We’ve moved three times. We’ve held multiple jobs. We’re walking through disappointment, insecurity, and uncertainty. Yet even under the weight of responsibility, even when he has far more important things to do, even in the precious minutes he could have had to himself – he chooses to untangle my necklace.

And as his calloused fingers loosen each knot, his love tightens the tie that binds.

Read More: An Open Letter to Every New Bride

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