Marriage Letters: On the Names I Call You

from weheartit

Dear Seth,

Who came up with these marriage letter topics? I remind you of the one for this week, and you giggle like a boy in the kitchen, swat me with a towel, and call me Sweet Cheeks. Oh we’ve called each other many names, but Sweet Cheeks was never one of them.

So much depends on the names we call each other, the words you speak that project how you see me, often how God sees me. And not simply those spoken words, but deeper those words in our hearts, wherefrom the mouth flows, where visions are and forgiveness works itself and belief uproots bitterness. Those words I call you in my heart are power, and then to speak them is to believe fully, the confession.

I’ve called you good, handsome, God-hearer, lover, all-or-nothing, zealous, broken. I’ve called you peace-maker. I’ve called you unafraid. Smartest man I know. Completely goofy. Daddy of my children. Forgiver. Singer. Guitar Picker. Writer of songs. Lover of people. Visionary. You’re a gardener. You make things grow. You are a sufferer. You are my buddy.

Those things I call you to your face and behind your back and to your children and in my heart. I build you up out of words. And when wrong words have been used, it takes more words to cancel out the building I’ve done, what I’ve added to how God sees you.

The names I call you take an attribute that I recognize in you and then they set a course for you. You have certainly called me things that I would never have seen, and those things are becoming true of me, in the way I see myself. We all make choices based on who we think we are, what we’ve been called.

This morning at the rock house, I woke with a gentle man, to a house with a clean kitchen. Seth, you dried the dishes last night after I washed them. We do things just to stand together. Sometimes you have to make me. You are a prophet. Call me out; tell me to rest, sit in your lap. You are sweet in my ear. Name caller, you.

You are the man who takes out our trash, even when you forget. You are weak in all the right ways. That is to say that you are strong.

With every kind of love,

Sweet Cheeks

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Please do join Seth, Joy, Scott, and me as we hold our marriages up to the light. Call your marriage what it really is. Every Monday in April we’re writing letters because we believe that when we bless our own marriage, we bless the marriages of others. If you write a post, simply leave the link to your Marriage Letter post only, and then send your readers to this post for more encouragement from others. Thank you for joining us.

Tagged as: marriage