Just Us and A Half Million Others

My beloved is mine, and I am his. Song of Solomon 2:16 (NIV)

When our youngest son was a baby, my mother in law began doing something that probably saved our marriage. She decided to baby sit for us once a week. Every Friday night when we came home from work, it was to an empty house. She picked up our children from school or day care, took them home, fed them dinner and kept them until about 10:00. Husband and I were able to go out to dinner to unwind, reconnect and be a couple instead of mommy and daddy. Now, oldest son has moved out of town and youngest is dating. Friday nights are no longer grandma night, but they continued to be our date night. Until a few months ago when we realized we were no longer tied to Friday night. Fridays is now become the day I go grocery shopping on my way home from work and then, we cook out or eat leftovers while I clean the house for the weekend. That is fine and in fact, we like not going out on a night when we are exhausted from work, but we also found that we started double dating more since Saturday has become date night. Youngest son and his girlfriend tag along for a free meal or we take our parents or other friends. We always have fun particularly with friends, but our couple time was eroding. We talked about it this week and wanted to make more of an effort to spend time together and not just on date night. It will mean that sometimes, I put my crafts aside, and he turns off the television, but it will be worth it. We were looking forward to this weekend when we were going to Leesburg for a bikefest. Though we were traveling with a bunch of friends, we were riding the motorcycle and that is always fun. When we got to Leesburg, we were stunned to see that the event that used to be a small town gathering of a few thousand motorcycles has become almost as large as Daytona bikeweek. In a span of about ten blocks there were at least 500,000 people. It was wall to wall people and motorcycles and after about two hours, we had had enough. The rest of the group felt the same way, so we headed for Mt. Dora, a nice little town full of antique and knick knack shops that husband and I consider our special getaway place. Even though we were with a group of friends, it felt as if we were alone as we both remembered carriage rides, romantic dinners for two, staying in a bed and breakfast and strolling hand in hand along the quaint streets. Just us and a half million other people, but some good couple time none the less. All of us have a “beloved”. Even if there is no human you can call that name, your Heavenly Father longs to be alone with you today. Don’t neglect that time. Make it a priority.