I want that “I still feel it” love.

Today I visited my great grandma and she told me about how she had lost the diamond in her wedding ring. She said “I just remembered about when I got it”:

“Me and Hal were walking down Broadway… Just doing some window shopping you know? And we came across this jewelry store and he stopped and said ‘hey why don’t we go look in here’ and so I said ‘well okay I guess.’ We went to the table with the rings and he would ask me ‘what do you think or this one? Do you like this one better?’ And I said ‘yes I do like that one better’ and then he asked me ‘would you like to have it?’”

She stopped and smiled while she teared up and said to me “See, I still feel it..”

Her Husband, Hal, had passed away in 2006. Billee, my great grandma, is turning 99 next month. They got engaged when she was only 20 years old. Hal was in the navy fighting in WWII while Billee was in nursing school where it was prohibited to have a boyfriend. She would hide her engagement ring in the glove box of her car and on her graduation day, she wore her engagement ring proudly.

It amazes me how someone of that age has the ability to still FEEL the moment she got engaged. It makes you think about how deep that love must have been. How intentional they were about each other. How easy it was for them to die to themselves every day and put the needs of the other above their own. To the point where you can still feel that love 79 years later.

It is so sad to watch dating couples and married couples fall out around me. And a lot of it comes down to the fact that one or the other or both could not let go of loving themselves and themselves only. There has been fewer and fewer instances of couples being capable of being fully committed and intentional with their partner.

I want a love that I can still feel when I’m 99 and my husband had passed 10 years earlier. I want a love that leaves me with no insecurities or self doubt. I want a love that I can look back on later in my life and smile while I hold back tears. I want the love that wears the engagement ring no matter the circumstance.

And you should want that love too. You should want something that is as solidified as the way that God loves the church. The way he loves his bride. You don’t want to build your house on the sand… you may be closer to a pretty view but when that ocean decides to flood, you’re going to wish you had built your house on the rock.

Find a man or woman who has built their house on a rock. Built their faith in the Lord. Not in themselves.

Find that love that you can still feel… become your own Hal and Billee.