If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1
Without considering how desperately nervous I’d be on my wedding day in 1970, I offered Bobbie, my fiancée, a special feature in the ceremony. “I’ll recite Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s classic poem, just before your dad brings you down the aisle,” I volunteered. She was delighted at my romanticism and courage. An hour before the ceremony, I wondered about my sanity to agree to such a thing.
In any case, I went through with it, and gratefully, it came off without a hitch. Ironically, however, as I look back on this experience, what really amazes me about my standing there is not that I narrated the poem. What stuns me is how little I knew as a callow twenty-two-year-old about “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
Even though I came from a wonderful home and grew up with lots of good friends, I knew little about love. Of course, I knew it was important to love God, but exactly how to love Bobbie and to love our children some day? I really didn’t have a clue.
The apostle Paul summarized what I’m saying this way—listen to this: “If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (vv. 2–3).
Incredibly, forty-five years later, after ushering Bobbie into heaven, I was there. A much older man, a different church, another fiancée. And as I had done the first time around, I volunteered to recite something by heart—this time to Nancy. It wasn’t a poem. This time it was what I’ve just cited from 1 Corinthians 13.
Marriage is love’s graduate school, landing that master’s degree, learning to give love when you don’t feel like it. Love is giving when you’re exhausted from a busy day or worried about tomorrow. Loving my new wife was an exercise in patience, humility, transparency, self-denial, service, and tenderness.
But if marriage was my master’s degree, having a little person who called me “Daddy” was earning my PhD. As though it were yesterday, I can remember the breathtaking feeling in my soul. “This little girl is my responsibility,” I breathed out loud. “I’m her daddy, the only one she’ll ever have.”
“Lord, please give me wisdom. Please give me understanding. Please give me patience. Please give me the resources to provide for this little girl. But most of all, Father in heaven, give me love—Your kind of love for my daughter and her mom. And then help me learn how to love You. Teach me to adore my family as much as You do.
“And how should I love them? Heavenly Father, please help me count the ways. And let my love be kind. And patient. Always. Amen.”