Howdy and Happy Monday!
I have been thinking about my husband. For 17 years he has left the house at 5:30 every morning to travel west for work. An hour and a half one way, every day, for 17 years, he has put in his 10 hour work day, and then traveled back home, an hour and half, that one way back, everyday. He never arrives home before 6:30 and often, given the state of Houston traffic and it roads, arrives mostly later. There have been car pools and partial van pools and then times when he just drove himself, an hour and half, one way, every day. He has driven the wheels off of cars, literally, and he has sucked the life out of at least 5 vehicles, driving every day, an hour and a half, one way.
Now the reason I am thinking about this is because, my husband invited me to the dinner the company provided for him, and his coworkers, in recognition of those employees who had served the company. Bob is one who has served from the beginning, when the idea of building the next generation deuce and a half’s had no premonition that would mean providing tactical vehicle systems to thwart IED’s.. It was a time before 9/11 and Operation Iraqi Freedom and two sons off to war. We arrived at the dinner, and I watched as Bob, a man who has done his best for the company, interacted with those who have been there as long as he had and those who came to proffer the awards. He whispered in my ear of those he admired and the few who he wondered at their motives and their integrity. I realized something. The job that had consumed the better part of my husband’s daily resources, was accomplished without much aid from me or his sons. Not that we had anything to offer intellectually, Bob more than covered that, but the normal social support for a man and his vocation had been missing for Bob. Yeah, I listened when he came home, but quite honestly, he was too far away for me to feel much involvement. I rarely drove out for a lunch or socialized with those he admired.
Not once, not one single time, cross my heart, do I recall Bob complaining.
Now someone would have to wonder, why? The simplest explanation was that it was easier. Easier on sons who could be stable in their education as they negotiated junior high and high school and kept the friends that supported them. Easier on a wife who was given opportunities most mother’s aren’t offered. Easier to keep life as we knew it, were comfortable with, our church nearby, and a house that was our home. Easier on a mother in law, who had become an integral part of a family who would provide her own special sanctuary for her grandsons.
The complicated reason: the one that defies reasoning? It speaks, testifies to the power of love. You cannot explain it otherwise. It was a purely unselfish, act of love from Bob to his family. If you ever want to know what human love is about, consider this example. My Bob is human, as he finds ever more creative ways to voice his punishment of the red-light running *&@#**&^$@# he encounters every day, one hour and half, each way, these past 17 years. Nevertheless, a mere human example of the extraordinary power, extraordinary gift of love, a failing human picture of God’s perfect Son’s, and His perfect sacrifice, and His perfect love. When Bob and I get to Heaven, I just bet our Father will say to Bob, ‘well done, WELL DONE, my good and faithful servant’.
