Coming Home to Pink Carnations

So tired... but so happy.

I did just that-- came home, to find pink carnations waiting for me by my bed. Not sure how they got there. Anna says they're from Ryan, though she "doesn't know what she can say." Hmmm. He did promise me flowers when we had to leave the others--- I mean the bouquet I found waiting in Courtney's room for me in Canton. (Courtney's Ryan's little sister, and she lent me her room while she was in Virginia and I was visiting with Ryan's fam in Georgia)

I haven't said much about the "us" in my life on this blog, have I? Sure, there've been a couple pictures, mention of him here and there, but I haven't expressed much feeling, that's for sure. The main reason is that I know he reads this. "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." So, while there is little I love to discuss more than the dream that God is being pleased to make true-- MY LIFE!!-- I've kept the feelings closely in check, in front of him, and certainly in cyberspace.

But now I'm coming home to pink carnations, and somehow that captures in an image the past week. He told me that he loved me in the freezing cold, and I knew he wasn't stealing my heart-- he was asking for it. More, he was giving his first-- all in good time, and rightly ordered. I first began to "fall for him," as Ashlea can attest, when he asked for my permission to walk me to my car at each parting, back in June. He further won my respect (and in that my heart) when he asked my father's permission before he told me those 3 words I'd seen clearly to be true for the past 5 months: "I love you." Knowing he had every right to tell me made it a real gift, not borrowed or stolen... What a joy to be able to put in simple words the truth we've been praying towards and seeking to live out before one another: genuine, abiding love. Serving of one another, and affection. A choice and action first, now free to be a delicious emotion... love. Romance.

A week of the stuff real dreams are made of-- him calling me beautiful when I'm too sick to breathe without coughing, sweet reconciliation after silences in the car that aren't exactly comfortable, picking up the cards I threw at him when he beat me yet again at Speed, praying together every night, laughing uncontrollably just when we SHOULD be quiet, and my favorite: wanting so badly to be near one another that we'd scrunch all our stuff into one side of the truck cab, meaning that I have to climb into the tiny middle seat, around the gear shift, from the driver's side...

I was planning on posting something like this even before I got home, and decided I'd do it right away when I read what he wrote on HIS blog. You may have already read his description, and if you haven't, you can read it now, so I won't repeat him, but I DO want to shout it from every mountain, even the virtual ones: I'M IN LOVE!!! =D

My friends, it's ok to laugh at me. I couldn't welcome laughter more.