The Unspoken Language of Love (Guest Blog by Kristy Cambron)

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Kristy Cambron - Christian wife, mother of two young sons and corporate executive. Kristy has recently joined the ACFW and will be one of my roommates at the conference in St. Louis; if you're there, I hope you'll take the opportunity to meet her. Below is a beautifully-written blog by Kristy about my favorite topic, love. It is posted with her permission. Blessings my friends.

The Unspoken Language (originally posted 5/17/2011)
We attended a wedding this week. As you can imagine, the day was indeed full of laughter and hugs. There was a proud groom, a beaming princess of a bride, and a host of supportive friends and family to fill the chapel. The scene was awash in the usual flash of many cameras. Everywhere you looked and walked and smiled, a happy energy seemed to follow; for something amazing was about to happen. A couple is embarking on the journey of a lifetime, and they're pledging to do it together.

Weddings are a powerful reminder of the beauty that love, friendship, and the promise of a hopeful future bring to a young, wide-eyed couple. I adore the showering down of promise that a wedding brings ...

It was at this wedding that I was reminded of the concept of an unspoken language.

Since we began dating, my husband and I have had our own language. This language doesn't pop-up all the time. It's the unspoken words that we choose to say when words are just not enough; I am always and will forever be moved by it. In some of the most meaningful moments of my life, my husband has reached for my hand and in complete quiet, gently tapped my palm three times. This has always meant and will always mean, "I. Love. You."

The bride and groom didn't ask us for marriage advice before they said "I do". I'm grateful for us and for them that they didn't. I might have said that your wedding day should be one of the ultimate highs in life, but watch out - it's not always going to be that way. Marriage isn't easy on the faint of heart or those that get weak in the knees. Marriage takes work. Often, it's a slug-fest. It's a one-way ticket to an ongoing lesson in grace and humility. It's something that you can't ignore, you're required to wholly invest in, and you have to take seriously if you're going to buy the dress and exchange the vows. Sure there's plenty of love and if you chose right, a friendship that can be compared to no other. But it's going to test you both. (How would those words have been received, do you think?)

Ten years out from my own wedding day, I can honestly say that the old comment about hindsight is true; I've learned a lot as I look back now. That's what's so special about the three taps that brushed my palm on the reception dancefloor this weekend. The "I. Love. You." meant more than what the three words say.

The taps literally meant:

• I love you as we walk through joy, but I love you even more when tragedy and loss mark our path. 
• I love you in each step we've taken together, whether right or wrong, hurtful or not. 
• I love you in this moment because of all the moments we've shared, and all those yet to come. 
• I. Love. You. 

My hand felt those taps on our wedding day as we exchanged rings. I will never forget that moment. It reminded me that though the day was perfect, there would be some days ahead that would test us, and that the love we felt then would have to be enough to see it through. Our hands have exchanged those taps at a funeral or two, and I was reminded each time that neither he nor I were standing alone.
I remember several times of quiet when my hand reached out for his, to tap the three words when nothing in particular was going on.

Three taps were exchanged at the birth of our boys, as I walked to join a line of my fellow college graduates, as I left the house one morning to start a new job,
as I cried at the loss of a loved one, as we each said "I'm sorry", as we sat by the hospital bed of our young son ... I.Love.You.

I started thinking this weekend about the words we speak each day of this life we are given. Often, we speak words of kindness, encouragement, and sympathy. While these are all good, they don't go nearly far enough. The simple yet unmistakably powerful three words, I love you, say so much more:

• Love one another as I have loved you. - John 13:34-35 
• For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. - John 3:16 
• I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20 
• Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. - Deuteronomy 7:9 
• I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. - Proverbs 8:17 

I am moved by the small gestures of life; the ones that carry weight, the ones that hold a depth of meaning beyond the obvious. It is the words of a unspoken language that carry the most weight. I am moved in viewing my own imperfection, sin, failure and an eventual restoration through Him, that Jesus Christ lived this unspoken language of love nothing less than perfectly - and his gesture of love was the greatest that anyone has ever given you and I.

Now read these words again, but as if Jesus has spoken them only to you:

I love you when everything is perfect, but I love you even more when it's not and you follow me. I love you when you're smiling, but I love you even more when you cry to me. I love you when you ask forgiveness, but I love you more when I can give it and you know it's not deserved. I love you as we walk through joy, but I love you even more when tragedy and loss mark our path. I love you in each step you've taken together with me, whether your right or wrong, your hurt or not. I love you in this moment because of all the moments we've shared, and all those yet to come. I. Love. You.

I can almost hear His whisper in those same life-moments that my husband and I walk -I.Love.You. Our relationship with Christ is a two-way street; just like marriage and just like any relationship that has merit, it takes the giving and receiving of a willing heart to say and really mean those three little words. Jesus has already done the difficult task for us - he willingly gave. He gave more than you and I will ever know on this side of eternity.

We have the easy part. There's no risk; all we have to do is receive.

Did I mention that the three taps of I.Love.You. between my husband and I are always followed by four taps from the other person? I think the love that Jesus gave is just waiting for those four taps back from us - I. Love. You. Too.

Visit Kristy at her blog: http://2sonsandparismom.blogspot.com/

(posted with her permissions)