MY WIFE IS

My Wife Is…

My wife is an iceberg.

Massive. White. And cold.

If that is the image that came to mind, then you have it all wrong. To begin with, my wife isn’t white at all. My favorite picture of her is of us along the Monterey coast, near Big Sur. It is one of those car background shots, where you stop along the roadside and get someone kind to take your picture. The sea gleaming blue-green under the sun, us standing on a little rocky outcropping. Perfect.

My wife’s beautiful yellow-brown skin warmed by the sun, standing next to my white Scandinavian skin, which thirty minutes or more of exposure will roast to bright red. And there she is, happily smiling, her arm around my waist and my left hand squeezing her shoulder. Her hair black and mostly straight, curving gracefully on the ends. So wonderful. So perfect. She is wearing one of her favorite pairs of casual jeans and a t-shirt. They look great on her, and I’m not just saying that. Blue Levi’s contrasting with her clown shirt, as I like to call it. But somehow, she looks picturesque in that moment, the light breeze on our faces, an occasional seagull overhead in my memory.

I slowly lower the photograph and the years go by. The black of her hair streaks with waves of silver and grey, the beauty and joys of age, and our daughter says to me, “Your strawberry red hair, Dad, is turning grey.” And I like that. A sense of age and place and time. A sense that these two oak trees have burrowed deep to find that true water source, that living water which makes us more than we are. That living water which is the other side of us, before the sin, before the falling, before the need for restoration that is Him.

Yet my wife, Chanie, is not massive. White or cold. She is warm and funny, caring and sexy, but I’ll stop it there…

My wife is beautiful like Venus de Milo; although her skin is not pale

My wife is more like the beautiful Venus de Milo in real life, and I mean that. No, her skin is not pale, though it is lovely and soft. Her architecture is not Greek or Roman, but Asian-American through and through, by way of New Jersey, by way of Washington DC, by way of Germany, by way of the sea, originating on that beautiful Chinese-British isle of Hong Kong, center of all that is Western and not Beijing. She is warm, yellow sunlight glinting off clear ice, shining straight and true. Yet, she goes deep, like an iceberg. On top: the beauty and intellect, the warm, caring person that she is, all true. Yet the depth of her, is the depth of His character.

My wife has a rock-solid faith in Jesus Christ

My wife has a rock-solid faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, lover of her soul. And just below the water line; solid, massive, immovable. Seen, but only if you look below. Faith; an adornment of the Spirit which is to the glory of God alone. Quiet, submissive, yet a teacher by profession of third, fourth and sometimes fifth graders. Massive faith below the waterline where Jesus is the center of who she is. Her eyes are completely fixed on Him: not her husband, not her career, not her children, not her husband’s unemployment or teaching or family. All else fades away. Faith in Jesus alone: immovable and immeasurable.

In the present moment, our increasingly hot sun can melt an iceberg bit by bit, so she waits, expectantly, joyfully for that day when she will be so transformed that faith becomes sight. Hope is seen face-to-face. Pain is washed away in the presence of God; transfixed, transformed, then living and moving freely in the sea of God’s eternal love and presence. My wife is an iceberg floating in a sea of Christ. Amen. Amen. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Michael, Chanie, Tim and Grace @ New Jersey boardwalk

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Michael L. Richard

Michael L. Richard is an author, writer, husband and father. He hopes to see his novel, CHOSEN’S BEAUTIFUL HEART in print, and that his readers are inspired by faith to pursue the courage of their dreams. He loves to speak and write about parenting, adoption, H.K, China and the horizons of our abilities. Sign up for his newsletter at: https://michael-richard-author.mailerpage.com/

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4 comments

  1. Yes, and she was willing to move from New Jersey to CA a couple of decades ago. By faith God used her and I came back to faith. Praise God!

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