So it begins. My husband and I have not been looking forward to 2024. All said and done, we will spend over half of this year apart! I dropped him at the ferry terminal in the dark this morning. He took that ferry to get to work. And work this week will be spent on a much bigger ship than that. Just a few days this time. Just a warm up. Next, it will be a couple of weeks. Eventually, six months. 

He texted me a few minutes after we parted ways at the terminal this morning. Apparently, we had inadvertently switched lids to our coffee thermoses. (Coffee preparation was something else we did in the early morning darkness today.) 

“I’ll think of you every time I take a sip,” he said. I was pulling into a gas station to fill up on the way home, and I looked down to see his black lid on my blue thermos. I had to smile. It felt like he had left a bit of himself behind. 

We are so attached to these thermoses that they almost do feel like an extension of us. Let me just say, if you’re looking for something to keep your beverages hot for an insanely long time, look no further than Zojirushi! 

The other day I took some herbal tea in mine on a Costco grocery run. It was still too hot to drink on the way home, hours later. The next morning, I saw my thermos sitting on the counter where I had deposited it the night before, coming into the house laden with groceries. I took a swig. Still warm. These things are incredible. 

If only we had a Zojirushi for marriage! A nice vacuum insulated container to pour our love into, to be safely retrieved, strong as ever, months later. If only. 

These prolonged separations are certainly not God’s ideal design for marriage. But for whatever reason they are part of His plan for our lives in this season, so I’m going to have to trust Him. 

For now, when I look at my mismatched thermos this week, I’m going to remember that we have something better than a state of the art stainless steel mug to protect us. Each of us and both of us. Together or apart. We are safely hidden, double walled, in the hand of Jesus, in the hand of the Father!

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

John 10:28-29 CSB