To the sweetest, sweet love of mine

My darling.

I love the cute way you embody Paducah, Kentucky and East L.A. with your slow-talking surfer demeanor and your courteous, country imitations.

I choose to express my heart to you through words because they tend to not fail me as my emotional expression does. You make my heart burst and my mind race and my lips long to figure out how to tell you, or show you that I care for you deeply.

When you give me flowers and cards to tell me that I make you want to be a better man, I, on the contrary, long to be a better woman because I often feel tainted by lives past. Although I know the Lord’s love and have been redeemed by it, no spiritual transformation lets your eyes unsee, your mind forget, or your body unlearn the lies.

You make me despise my dirty, impure mind - partly because a very large part of me wants to protect your purity and mine. But partly because a smaller part of me wants to “jump you,” seeing as wreckage of life left in the past has taught me that that is the way to show people you want them. I hate to want you like that.

I am caught off guard by the countless times that conversation and quiet times spent around you express and increase my want for you more than anything I could express with my body. For this I am grateful.

I laugh at the way your heart is much softer and emotional than mine. But that laugh often turns to sorrow because I want to know what that heart feels like.

You should know that unlearning what I knew is as difficult as two Christians arguing about the new gay marriage ruling. It never quite makes sense and it is never an agreeable thing, yet it is so. I want to shout from the rooftops at me-without-Jesus and say, “YOU ARE WRONG! EVEYTHING ABOUT YOU IS UNNATURAL AND WRONG AND IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!!!  GO AWAY!” But shouty capitals never actually change reality. Then, I want to yell even more at me-with-Jesus saying, “GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER… TAKE THE GRACE, MOVE ALONG, BECOME! WHAT THE CUSS ARE YOU WAITING FOR? DROP THE OLD, AND MOVE FORWARD.” Those capitals are just as ineffective.

Alternatively, I do understand that yelling at myself, my internal self, my me-with-Jesus and my me-without-Jesus is all graceless and in turn, pointless. It is not what Jesus would have and thankfully, it is not what you would have. For that I am ultimately grateful.

I am grateful for your grace-giving, life-giving, sweet, kind-hearted spirit. I am grateful for your strong, supportive arms to hug and hold me, as well as your strong, supportive spirit to love a mess like me. I am grateful for your willingness to learn more about me, more about Jesus, more about life and more about happiness.

I may laugh at the fact that your style is incredibly singular and in my mind, a bit dull (sorry!), but I love it all the same because it is you and it came from your mind.

Now I understand that to continuing to call you sweet could probably be downplaying your manliness. So here goes the ego-stroker.

You are a man’s man; a strong and faithful fighter. You are protective of what you love and an excellent leader to those you care for. You know where to draw lines of reproach so as to not fall prey to other’s schemes, but you do so in the most dignifying way possible to all involved. You are honest and respectable in mind and an industrialist with your hands. Your handiwork is admirable to say the least. And we cannot forget those calves that every other man only wishes he had (insert dramatic swoon)!

Now that that’s over… I love you. And I would sacrifice my internal malicious pride to encourage you in all the ways you deserve. You are sweet. And I don’t mind being a bit salty because I have you. 

- A