Decades ago, I visited Greece with a tour group. Diane didn’t go with, she hates travel, except these days to go see the grandkids. So, half a world away and missing her, I bought a gift so she’d know how much I love her. It was a dress. She never, ever wore it. Well, once she did. About 20 years ago, our daughters were visiting and for some reason the three of them started mocking the dress, that “I miss you so much, I love you so much, I picture you in this Greek dress.” Diane slipped out of the living room and came back wearing the dress. I got the point; it just wasn’t her.
Bill McClellan’s column reminded me of that dress. Mr. McClellan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and happens to live across the street from the Seminary. Now and then we’d meet when we were walking our dogs. Anyway, Bill wrote about a gift he had given to his fiancé, now his wife of 41 years. “When we were first a couple, I decided to buy her a birthday gift. I gave my new girlfriend a sewing machine. She just looked at it. ‘It’s a sewing machine,’ I said. She stopped looking at the sewing machine and looked at me. ‘I know what it is,’ she said. Eventually, I took it back to my friend.”
Another of my great gifts to Diane, I think this was for our anniversary, was a weed whacker. Made sense to me; she loves yard work, needed a new one, so I bought it. I thought I had been doing what husbands are supposed to do, listen to our wives. Well, that weed whacker is in second place in our 47 years of marriage, right behind the dress. And there have been extension cords, vacuums, everything the woman needs to take care of me. As Bill wrote, “She knows me very well, but I am not sure how well I know her.”
Despite my being an oaf, the romantic thing is that Diane kept the dress. The Bible compares the love of Christ and the Church to the love of a bride and groom. If I don’t get earthly gifts right, I wonder if we’re giving our Lord the gifts that please Him, or are we giving what we imagine He wants? And where would you go to find the answer, especially on this side of the final judgment?
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