When the dark days come and the clouds go gray

All men must brave them as best they may,

With never too much repining;

And bravest is he, when the shadows fall,

Who sees in the gloom of his darkened hall

The light of his faith still shining.

In those lonely days when his heart shall ache

And it seems that soon shall his courage break,

There is only one place to borrow;

One place to go for the strength he needs,

He must bind with faith every wound that bleeds,

And cling to his faith through sorrow.

For truly forlorn is the man who weeps

When his dead lies buried in floral heaps

And friends his path are lining;

And a pitiful creature he’s doomed to be

If he cannot look through the gloom and see

The light of his faith still shining.

-Edgar A Guest

This is a poem from a book Joe and I found while on a date one afternoon in Galveston rummaging through an old antique store a while back.  The book is a book of poems written by one man.  A lost language in a book that is so old it is falling apart at the seams.  One that now has to be handled oh so gently in reading it’s pages.  A book written by a man pouring his heart out and dedicated it all to “Nellie and the Children”.

I can’t help but think about how a book written by just a simple man could never even guess that one day another simple man would be reading it’s beautiful pages in bed each night to his wife.

Yes indeed…Joe has started to read to me in bed at night.

This one he read to me, the first poem in this book, last night after I had already fallen asleep. (oops) It startled me awake and I was sung back to sleep with it’s beautiful words through Joe’s amazing reading.  He is the best reader.  Cheesy, yes, I know…but being able to lay on his chest while he reads words from a book might be my absolute new favorite thing we JUST started doing together.  A gem of time.  I truly cherish it.  God is so creative.  Through words, through timing, through reading, through relevance.

So today I am thankful for that time.  The time in the finally quiet of the day to get to spend with Joe.  No longer on our phones, or watching the TV…but just next to him while he sweetly reads to me.