A few days ago, Naledi found an old letter. It was written about five years ago, just before Alu was born. I had almost forgotten about it. But when Naledi showed it to me, it brought back memories of a particular season in our marriage. And as I read it, I found myself thinking about my wife. Not so much about the letter itself, but about the woman I have had the privilege of sharing my life with for almost ten years. There are things you appreciate about someone when they happen. But there are other things that you only begin to appreciate properly years later. This was one of those moments.
I Had a Vision
Some years ago, Naledi and I had an opportunity to open our home and care for someone who was not part of our immediate family. I was excited about what this could mean. I thought about the gospel. I thought about Christian hospitality. I thought about what it means to welcome someone into your home and treat them as part of your family. I wanted our home to display something of the love of Christ. I believed then, and I still believe now, that the gospel should shape how Christians open their homes and love others.
The gospel creates a new family. In Christ, people who otherwise might never have shared a life together are brought near. Christian love should cross the boundaries that so often separate people. These were good convictions. But looking back, there was something I did not fully understand. I was excited about the theology of what we were doing. Naledi had to live it.
She Was on the Frontlines
It is one thing to speak about Christian hospitality. It is another thing to practise it every day. I could speak about opening our home. Naledi had to make room in her daily life. I could speak about sacrificial love. Naledi had to sacrifice. I could speak about caring for others. Naledi had to do much of the caring. There were conversations to have, emotions to navigate, needs to meet, and the ordinary demands that come when you welcome someone into your family. And through much of that, Naledi was on the frontlines.
She listened. She comforted. She corrected when correction was needed. She gave her time and attention. She carried responsibilities that I did not always notice. And she did all this while being a wife and mother herself and, toward the end of that season, preparing for the birth of another child. Looking back, I can see that I was sometimes more concerned about what our family could accomplish than about what my wife was carrying. I was asking: How can what we are doing glorify God? That was a good question. But there was another question I should have been asking more often: How is my wife doing?
A Letter That Reminded Me
The letter Naledi recently found was written during that season. It was a simple letter of appreciation. The kind of letter that might easily get packed away with other papers and forgotten. But finding it again reminded me of something I had perhaps not appreciated sufficiently at the time. Someone who had been welcomed into our home had experienced Naledi’s care and had taken the time to express gratitude for it. The letter spoke of being treated like family, of receiving guidance, and of finding someone to turn to during difficult moments.
Reading those words years later, I was reminded that much of what makes a Christian home beautiful is not necessarily what visitors see when they walk through the door. It is what happens after the door closes. It is the conversations around the table. It is the willingness to listen when you are already tired. It is the patience required when relationships become complicated. It is the ordinary, unseen work of loving people. And that was the work my wife was doing.
The Mother She Already Was
There was another reason the letter moved me. At the time it was written, Naledi was pregnant with Alu. The letter expressed excitement about the baby who was coming and appreciation for the kind of mother Naledi was already showing herself to be. That baby is now five years old. Five years! As I read the letter, I thought about everything that has happened in those five years. I thought about the children we now have, the homes we have lived in, and the different seasons of life through which the Lord has brought us. And I thought about the woman who has been beside me through it all. I have watched Naledi mother our children. I have watched her care for people beyond our immediate family. I have watched her give herself in ways that rarely attract attention. And I have come to realise that some of the most beautiful things about my wife are things that happen when nobody is watching.
Answer Number One
Naledi sometimes asks me: “Why did you choose me?” This is my first answer. Because you love beyond what is required of you. I have watched you do it. I have benefited from it myself. Our children experience that love every day. And over the years, others have experienced it too. You have made room for people in your life, even when doing so required sacrifice. You have given your time when you could have used it for yourself. You have cared when caring was inconvenient. And perhaps what makes this answer especially meaningful to me is that I did not always appreciate these things as I should have. I was often thinking about the bigger picture. You were attending to the person in front of you. I was excited about displaying the gospel. You were doing the ordinary, costly work of love.
The Gospel in Ordinary Love
There is something I have learned about Christian love over the years. The gospel is gloriously theological. It tells us about the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the person and work of Christ, his substitutionary death, his resurrection, and our reconciliation to God through faith in him.
But the gospel also changes how we live. It produces love. Not merely love in words, but love expressed in ordinary acts of service. Love that welcomes. Love that listens. Love that bears inconvenience. Love that continues to give even when nobody notices. Of course, our love is never perfect. Even our best acts of love are mixed with weakness and sin. But Christian love is a response to something far greater than ourselves.
The apostle John writes: “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) We do not love others to earn God’s favour. We love because, in Christ, God has already shown us a love we could never deserve. And when I look back on that season of our marriage, I am reminded that the gospel I wanted our home to display was being reflected in many of Naledi’s ordinary acts of care. I wish I had recognised that more clearly then.
Something I Would Tell My Younger Self
If I could sit down with the young husband I was five years ago, I would tell him a few things. Brother, it is good to have a vision for serving Christ. It is good to want your home to be a place of hospitality. It is good to want your marriage to display the gospel. But do not become so excited about what your family might do for God that you overlook the woman God has given you. Pay attention to her. Listen to her. Ask how she is doing. Do not assume that because something is a good Christian thing to do, you have necessarily considered what it will require of your wife. And when you see her faithfulness, acknowledge it. Do not wait five years for an old letter to remind you.
Naledi, I See It Better Now
As we approach ten years of marriage, I am increasingly aware that there are things about my wife I did not fully understand when we got married. There are qualities I have discovered only because we have shared a life together. And there are things I have watched her do for years that I am only now learning to appreciate properly.
Naledi, I cannot go back and thank you for everything at the moment it happened. I cannot go back and notice every sacrifice I failed to notice. But I can say something now. Thank you for the way you have opened your heart to others. Thank you for the love you have given beyond what anyone could reasonably expect. Thank you for making our home a place where people could experience kindness, patience, care and belonging. And thank you for showing me, often without saying a word, what sacrificial love looks like in ordinary life.
So, when you ask me: “Why did you choose me?” Here is answer number one: Because you have a beautiful capacity to make room in your heart for others, even when loving them comes at a cost to yourself. On 26 November 2016, I chose you without knowing everything the years ahead would reveal about you. Almost ten years later, I am still discovering reasons to thank God that I did. And this is only my first answer.