Ridiculous Wishes

I felt all one-thousand, eight hundred seconds tick down on the face of that flimsy clock, on that manilla brick wall, in that dreadful classroom, on every school day from March 17th, 2004 until May 12th, 2007.

The final thirty minutes of the day were the only thing keeping me from my best friend and the entire hope of my teenage existence.

We didn’t go to the same school. She’d have never given me a second look if we did.

But thanks to the gift of meeting each other through words, not pictures, we connected on a level that is far superior to anything modern dating has to offer; plain old calls & text messages.

And as soon as that clock would strike 3:30, I could get back to talking to “my future wife,” Valerie Jo Hudson.

It was a ridiculous wish.

I’d never had a girlfriend before.

No girl had ever even taken me seriously.

She was gorgeous. Popular. Smart. And completely out of my league.

But I was determined to make her feel like the most important, special, beautiful girl in the whole world.

Now, before you write me off as a nauseating romantic, let me tell you:

• I do not believe there is only one fish in anyone’s sea.

• And I do not believe that love can be wished into existence.

But I very much believe that wishes can be loved into existence.

I’m not talking about the oxytocin-infused, drunk kind of love that overtakes two young people.

I’m talking about the kind of love that shows up.

That believes against the odds.

That keeps giving, even when it hurts.

That always looks for a way.

And that never takes the easy way out.

I’m talking about the love that is labor.

Sunday will mark twenty years of each of us living and giving in that kind of love.

We have survived a year of long-distance, changes in values, changes in direction, and changes in dreams. Loss of life, loss of jobs, loss of security, friends, and health. Additions of family, kids, more kids, more kids, more risk, animals, more problems, more work, less sleep, less freedom, less easy-going, and less time.

But we have never stopped showing up, believing, giving, and finding our way together. 

Not once in two decades.

It seems farfetched that we somehow knew to show up for each other when we were so young. But I think that was the true gift that God gave us. And I think he wants you to have it, too.

Do you have a ridiculous wish?

Love it into existence, my friend.

• Show that wish you are determined.

• Do not stop to count any odd against you.

• Listen, learn, give.

• Listen, learn, give.

• Listen, learn, give… every day until you have the thing. Then, never stop celebrating what you have.