Ever since this man professed his love for me three years ago, he has never ceased to exemplify the nature of truest love.  You see, pure love is more tangible than elusive emotions; pure love is the solid foundation upon which secure families are built. Mothers are often lauded as the seamstresses of the family fabric, and most definitely they are, but fathers are the frame that hold the fabric in place for the mending, reinforcing, and designing that must happen.  Our society is redefining marriage and family and minimizing the imperative role that husbands and fathers have in their homes, so here is my tribute to the man that I waited 27 long years to marry.

What does love look like? I need only think of him, and I know.  Love is the devotion he showed in escorting me home from work every single day during the year of our courtship. Love is the $200 phone call he placed while deployed, the summer before our wedding, just so he could hear my voice and assure himself that I was real. Love is his telling me I am the most beautiful woman in the world…when I am 9 months pregnant.  Love is his cleaning the bathtub after I lost my dinner in the shower and this is when we had only been married a few short months.  Love is marrying me AND loving my obnoxious cats and dog as his very own.  Love is complimenting how I decorate the house, thanking me every week after I have done routine housecleaning, and learning the descriptions and titles of all of my Thirty-One bags.  But his love goes even deeper than this.

Is there such a thing as sacrificial love? Yes, and I see it in action every day.  Sacrificial love is when he tears himself away from his family day in and day out in order to go to work so that I can stay home with our children.  Sacrificial love is understanding how much it means to me when the babies reach for me first and not begrudging me that fulfilling joy.  Sacrificial love is helping me with my household duties when I am feeling overwhelmed despite his own lengthy list of responsibilities waiting for him.  Sacrificial love is being prepared to work three jobs or go back to school if that is what is needed to provide for us so that I do not need to work outside of the home.  Sacrificial love is esteeming me as better than himself on a daily basis because Jesus is his Example.

After Christ, this wonderful man is the foundation of our family.  He is our anchor in this tumultuous world.  We know that his strong arms will shield us from wind’s buffetings; his broad shoulders are ever ready to bear our burdens.  Should danger assault us, he will not hesitate to shield our lives with his own.  This man is passing on the legacy of selfless love to our son and is teaching our daughter to settle for nothing less than love that esteems her above life itself.   My husband is chivalry in action; the knight on the white horse; the prince from the pages of the past; the man who inspires me to love deeper and more selflessly every single day.