Counting Laps, Wedding Bands, and Gaining a Heart of Wisdom

It happens a lot when I'm swimming.

I'll be half way into the 14th lap or so, counting it off in rhythm with my stroke, and suddenly become aware of it. Fourteen? Is that right? So I glance up at the clock to check, and, yup...that would be about right.

I do 23 laps every morning, Monday to Friday, so I'm counting a lot. Some mornings I slog a bit. But most mornings it goes by quickly, and more than once I experience that tiny wonder of it. I distinctly remember getting in the pool, but it's almost as if I'm barely with my body as it pushes through the water, back and forth, working my heart and lungs, gaining strength.

It happened at the jewelery counter on Friday night.

Ken and I were shopping for a wedding band. This would seem odd, since we've been married for 31 years. But the truth of it is, in a tragic act of random weirdness, I lost my original wedding band when the little heart-shaped cup I keep all my everyday jewelery in, got knocked off the shelf, sending its contents scattering across the floor. All other items were retrieved. But not the wedding band.

Yes, I looked. Lifted the rug, swept under the bed, pulled back the furniture, pried off the trim. For almost a year I kept hoping it would show up somehow. It's crazy, because I know it's in the house. In the meantime, on my left hand, I've been wearing another ring Ken gave me, a gold band with three small diamonds, one each for our children, Kristyn and David and the baby we lost.

But this weekend Ken announced that he wanted to buy me another wedding band. "To say that I'd marry you all over again", he said. An early Valentine's Day gift.

Which took us to the jewelery counter, and the conversation with the woman behind the counter, and that sudden, surprising sense of having lost track of time. "We've been married 31 years," I explained, "But I lost my wedding band in a tragic act of random weirdness."

Thirty one years? Could that be right? I glanced up at the boy I'd met back in highschool, now the man, the Grandad, who is my husband, and....yup...that would be about right. We're older now, both of us. Our faces and bodies wearing the joys and sorrows of a lifetime together. Some of that has slogged a bit, if I were to be totally honest. But most of the time it's gone by alarmingly fast.

And walking through the mall back to the car, holding hands, enjoying the silly happiness of admiring the new ring, I experienced an enormous wonder of it. Thirty one years! When did that happen? I distinctly remember getting married, being there for all of it, but it sometimes, looking back, it seems as if it happened without me. It didn't. We were there, both of us. But...thirty one years?

There's a phrase in the ancient Hebrew psalter that's a prayer, and it says this.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Have we gained any wisdom from the number of our days? I hope so, even though it feels more like we're having to learn things over and over again, especially when our marriage travels over brand new - sometimes less than friendly - territory.

I do know that I have a remarkable husband. The journey of our lives together has had so many surprises that, if you'd asked us at 15 and 16 (yes, that's how old we were when we met) if we would expect to be where we are today, I don't think we could have begun to imagine it. Ken, especially, has had to make enormous adjustments regarding expectations of roles and lifestyle and who we are as a couple now, in our 50s. And he's stuck it out with me. Buys me a new wedding band when I've been clumsy enough to lose the first one. Says that he'd marry me all over again. I am one lucky lady.

So I guess one day, God willing, when I'm looking up at him and we're 70....I hope I've numbered those days aright. I hope we've spent each day aright, loving on each other, being on each others' side and by each others' side.

Because it goes really, really fast. I want to make it count.

Happy Valentine's Day, Love.


NOTE: Ken and I are attending Marriage Max with other couples at our church right now. Check it out on joellifecoach.blogspot.com. Joel Bennett of Breakthrough Life Coaching Solutions is our facilitator. We're having an amazing time.