Every Friday for almost seven years now, Josh Downs has come home with flowers for me and he always picks them up from the same, locally owned florist too.
He's just good and loyal like that.
I have to admit that in the days leading up to his deployment, I was thinking a lot about all the little things I would miss about him and Friday Flowers were on the list.
The first Friday after he deployed though, I heard a knock at the front door and felt my heart start to race when I saw the silhouette of flowers through the glass - and they've been delivered every Friday since.
I should have known.
Because he's just good and loyal like that.
Before I write anymore, let me preface this by saying that Josh Downs is totally fine - but I had a horrible pit in my stomach yesterday that something had happened to him. I tried to rationalize that I was just being irrational and that he was fine, but I couldn't shake the feeling. I sent him an email and asked him just to shoot me off a quick response to let me know he was ok, but I didn't hear back.
And then I started thinking about the effect Josh Downs has had in my life and how I feel like God sat him next to me on that airplane just like some sort of gift - maybe rewarding me for all those years I spent as a single mom. Maybe to help heal the things that I was struggling to heal on my own. Or maybe just to show me how love is supposed to look, how it's supposed to feel and how it's supposed to endure.
Like God wanted to show me how much He loved me through Josh.
Because He's good and loyal like that too.
So last night when I got home from a class I'm taking, I rushed through the door and straight to the computer to see if Josh had responded and he had:
"All is good you sexy thing. Been a wacky couple of days, but a couple of days closer to you."
I just sat and stared at his email for a few minutes and breathed for what felt like the first time all day before I could even respond.
And rereading his email now, I have to laugh because 'sexy' is certainly not a word that most people would use to describe me.
But my husband does. Like he's been faithfully wearing beer-goggles for the last seven years or something.
Because he's just good and loyal like that.
And if you're reading this Josh Downs...We're one day closer.
