Sit with me.

He says all the time, "It's because I love you."

When I'm exhausted, filled with stress, or just feeling lazy, the man I live with picks up our dry-cleaning or gets eggs at the store and he patiently tells me (because my husband can be eternally patient), "It's because I love you".

When I'm sick, my husband will use the few minutes he has free from work or phone calls or doing our taxes to go pick up my medicine at the drug store for me. When I say thank you, he tells me he does it because he loves me.

There are plenty of times when I mess up. I forget to pay a bill and am now facing a late fee, or I've done something in anger or frustration around the house and ended up breaking whatever it was I meant to repair. My partner comes behind me and fixes my mistake. Eventually I apologize. It wasn't his problem to fix. But he always tells me, "It's because I love you."

One night I work the evening shift and am driving home even later than usual. I hear strange noises, then a loud pop that could only be mistaken for a vast pot hole for several seconds until I hear the tell-tale "thwap, thwap, thwap" of a flat tire.

A blowout. I find a piece of shoulder to pull over onto. Thank God for our roadside assistance. Someone will be here to affix the spare tire in the frigid temperatures in a matter of minutes. Then I realize it's unusual for my husband to be in town that night...but he is. He got home just hours ago.

I figure I should call him, so I do. Even though a towing company is coming to change the tire and it will not be long, John says he's coming. To sit with me. Just to be there. To keep me company. He doesn't have to, but he comes just because he loves me.

This is one of the wonderful effects of marriage - having someone to sit with, to wait with, to be together with.

It is not lost on me that hearing my husband say over and over again "It's because I love you" and having someone who says that and follows it up with action even when I'm frustrated, stressed, unpleasant or being selfish, is perhaps the reason why I understand clearly the love God has for me. It doesn't make sense, but now, seeing it displayed in real life, it does make sense - in a way.

"Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives." ~ Ephesians 5:25-28 (The Message)

So, these Bible words can be reality. I am married to a man who proves it. And the reality of this plan of God's, a covenant between a man and woman, sacrifice for each other, forever love, shared life...I wish those who ignore marriage in hopes of avoiding pain, or sacrifice, could know how indescribably better this covenant can be.

"It's just because I love you." Amazing how those few words can mend brokenness, smooth out anger and stress, boost confidence, and spur me to be a better person, a better wife...because I love him.