a ring, a kiss, & three words

now I wear this small silver ring on the most significant finger

and what it says to me when I look at it is this:

that I am saying yes to him; I am promised

and what it says to him when he looks at it is this:

he has made a down-payment on a pearl of great price;

has vowed to give himself to me as a husband

so now when I look him in the eye I see

decades unfurling before us like gentle rolling tides

I see how we dance with one another now

and imagine how we’ll dance when we are old

when I hold his hand or stroke his arm

I realize that this flesh is merely a part

of the whole flesh that will one day soon be One Flesh

I carry the weighty wonder of knowing that

we will be each other’s never-leavers

we’ll spend this entire earth-living life

belonging to one another

and here is how it happened:

after the blessings of fathers granted

and so much careful scheming accomplished,

be took me to a rooftop at sunset

with the expanse of a city not our own stretched out before us

and a room full of a hundred and fifty family-of-God friends

exploring the father heart of God together downstairs

and there was specially commissioned graffiti art

from our dread-headed friend

and a poem in a shirt pocket

a ring in a pants pocket

there were lilies there

and he (my lover, my friend) kneeled before me

when he said, “brooke, will you be my wife?”

there were things we’d saved up for this day

like the first kiss of lips on lips

and the words “I love you”

so that both of these are

forever first of all about commitment

and second about pleasure and romanticism

sweetly co-existing in this rightly-ordered way

do you know how I replied?

mostly it was with squealing

and jumping up and down excitedly

as i thought how this is really happening -

this thing I have waited over a decade for -

and with such a man as this

with whom I entrust my entire being

because he’s a whole lot like Jesus

I found myself unafraid and free to say

“yes, with all my heart.”

now I will kiss him with the kisses of my mouth and

I will love him with my life and my hands and my heart

I will love him love him love him

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