Before every meal that Amy and I sit down to, we lean into each other to express our gratitude and appreciation for each other… and to offer a kiss.  This is a prayerful moment for me as I express these parts of my love for her… to her.  While being able to enter into that space with her is wonderful enough… there are also moments leading up to that which are just as special.

There is often a tug of war over who gets to put food on their plate first.  Often times we will pile the food on our plate at the stove and then move to the table.  I always insist that she get hers first… and she returns the insisting that I go first… I tend to give in most of the time.

She likes it that way.

From the stove, I will move my plate to the dinner table where I will put it down, and anxiously wait for Amy to arrive with hers.  I don’t sit down yet… because my heart is longing for her arrival (even though it is usually just a few feet of distance between us).  Sometimes, I need to remind the kiddos (who are already seated) not to take a bite until she arrives.  She is worth the wait.

Finally… Amy will arrive with her food, and I will time out my sitting down with her… so that I can lean in for that kiss… and the expression of gratitude and appreciation.

This is only one example of one of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life from Amy… the importance of a woman being able to set the pace.

As a man… with many ideas… I have had the double edged sword experience of having the ability to jet off in many directions… satisfying the ideas and ambitions within me.  But have burned out trying… or been too afraid to actually move any of those ideas into reality.

I had no sense of pace.

A woman has a natural way about her that feels her way into waiting.  As a man… I can suggest any number of directions that we could head… all of them may be good… but not all of them may be the way that we should go.  And so I need her…

I need her to set the pace… so that the good ideas drop off… and the great ideas remain.

I need her to set the pace… so that as a man, I can appreciate more that natural intuition she has to feel her way through life with me.

I need her to set the pace… because sometimes, as a man… I miss the urgency of a situation where action is needed… now.

I need her to set the pace… because in my ability to move from point A… to B… to C… sometimes I miss the opportunities to pause at point A.1… A.2…. A.3…

Men tend to miss out on a lot of life… because we haven’t learned to slow our pace down long enough to smell the roses.  We get pace wrong… a lot.

… and so I need her…

To teach me how to to trust… and to find God in the places that move slower in life… to breath in all of the graces I would have missed… had I set off on my own… and expected her to keep up.