The Gravestone

On a summer morning while traveling back to Connecticut after a vacation trip,  Jim and I stopped at the family grave sight.  It was a modest church cemetery where all the grave markers were flat stones embedded in the ground so the caretaker could easily mow--practicality over beauty.

When we found the grave markers, my heart began to pound.  How would I feel--sad, nostalgic, angry, lonely?    Jim and I found this experience to be very conflicting since one of my relatives buried there had caused our family pain and distress with which we were still grappling.

As I searched for my family members' names, I struggled to see them because the grass had overtaken the flat stones.  Then in a startling act of love, my husband bent down to the stone of that troublesome family member and with his bare hand, he began to clear the grave of all it's debris.  I know Jim would have rather left that marker covered with the grass and leaves, symbolic of that person never existing.  But that is not what he did.  His spontaneous act was a show of love toward me, overtook his frustration, disappointment, and anger with my relative.

In 1 Corinthians 13 the characteristics of perfect love are listed.  On the list is, "love is patient, love is kind...it is not self-seeking...it keeps no record of wrongs...love never fails."  On that July morning, I saw perfect love in action at the hands of my husband.