Tuesday, March 14, 2006

You Fill Up My Senses


You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean

You fill up my senses
Come fill me again
Come let me love you
Let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter
Let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you
Let me always be with you
Come let me love you
Come love me again




We were watching a John Denver special tonight. I had been very melancholy today already. Watching and listening to him sing, hearing his family talk about him, brought up all kinds of emotions.

John Denver's music embodied so much of our newly married life. Ed and I both loved his music. We lived in the Colorado mountains when we were first married. We went to see John Denver perform in the Red Rock outdoor theater that first summer we were married.

The lyrics above are from Annie's Song, that John Denver wrote for his wife. While listening to him talk about what caused him to write it and watching the scenery of his inspiration, a sweet remembrance of the first year of marriage inundated me ..... it's pleasure, passion, companionship, discovery, and exhilaration. We were so in love .... as much as we knew what that was.

The lyrics express John Denver's feelings for his wife, Annie. As he talked about how the brilliance of the blue sky above the snowy, jagged, winter peaks of the Rocky Mountains assaulted his senses and how that reminded him of his wife .... I began to think of the difference in my love for Ed since that first blissful year and now, almost 33 years later. My affection and delight in our companionship exceeds anything I could have imagined at 22.

Did our love grow at a steady upward pace for the last 33 years? Hardly. Years of diapers and and drudgery dampened the fire of the initial flame. But now we know that sparks don't last as long as smoldering embers. The intense heat of the glow deep in the ground can burst into a roaring blaze at any time.

The picture of us was taken in Rome on our 30th anniversary trip. Ed saved and planned for six years to take me back to Rome. I had lived there for a year in college and hadn't been back. He knew how much I loved it and wanted to go back. We are standing by some beautiful flowers (which we both love) near the Roman forum. The picture represents so much of what ties our hearts together.

My heart is abounding with gratitude for God's grace in providing such a wonderful man to spend my days.