our visit home rocked! my mom is still really sick, but i think it really lifted her spirits to see ariel and i. she laughed and joked a bit more - she looked good. my sisters were so excited to see us too, and my dad made us his famous shrimp creole! *smiles* it's always worth the five hour drive to go see them. and once we get there, it seems like they live next door, like the time that we spent in the car was really only five minutes.

ariel never ceases to amaze me in his sacrificial and self-giving love for me. when nina was here, i barely paid any attention to him at all, and he never once complained, even though he had just got off of his night float and the two of us hadn't really spent any time with one another in a while. i told him that i wanted to go home and he drives five hours without blinking. he always waits for me to tell him where i want to eat, or where i want to sit at church.

anyway i guess i'm done wondering why he loves me so much. because lately, i have just been standing in complete awe, not thinking about the question of why he loves me, but at the realization that he loves me as much as he does.

and then it makes me think: if he loves me so much that he would literally do anything for me . . . ariel, with all of his good qualities and flaws, his piety and his sinfulness . . . how much then, must the Lord, who, in all of His perfection and omnipotence chose to lay down His life for me once and chooses again to lay it down for me every minute of every day . . . how much must He, my King, who has the ultimate capactiy to love because He is love . . . how much must He love me. i think that's why our gracious Lord gave us the experience of another person's love. because i don't know how you could really experience it (not superficially, of course, but deeply and with an intense emotional intimacy) and not realize that it's so big, and so powerful. i am completely convinced that love, better than any other experience, points direcly to a Creator and a Lover of souls.

*shrugs* yeah, so with my two favorite boys loving me so much, i guess today is going to be a pretty good day. and so will tomorrow . . .