By Tisa Joyner Nance

I knew my love before we became lovers. He attended the same church I went to and on occasion we would see each other at our singles’ ministry events. But our friendship didn’t blossom into love until I relocated from New York to New Jersey. Having just moved into the same neighborhood, a mere block away, we just naturally began to hangout. On the nights when I was suffering from severe homesickness, he would take me on long walks through the neighborhood to cheer me up. Unfortunately, the neighborhood we lived in didn’t really offer any solace. But eventually his companionship became the comfort I longed for. We became the best of friends. I found that I could confide in him and he would actually talk so much I would fall asleep on the phone.

It was like he was my kindred spirit. There were times when I would have a personal crisis and he would literally be my knight in shining armor. For instance, there was the time when I was sitting in my apartment in the dark because my fuse blew and I was too afraid to go into the basement alone. So I put a candle in on my windowsill and prayed he would walk down my block on his way home and see it (this was before cell phones). Well, although he had a late night at work, “something” told him to take the long way home and walk down my block just to look up and check on me. He saw my candle and literally rescued me from the dark!!! These types of instances would just keep happening to the point where we were both feeling like something divine was as work.

But it wasn’t just about what he could do for me. It was more about the man he was that made me love him. How he would pick up strangers (especially mothers with children) waiting at the bus stop in the rain or the snow. Or how he would calm down the local drunk attempting to disrupt our summer outdoor services. His compassion and concern for his people were both refreshing and inspiring. With each passing month, I found myself more and more in love with his easy smile, his hearty laughter, his passion for social justice, and how much he loved God.

Two years later, on our wedding day, my love dedicated and sang Bob Marley's song to me: "I Want to Love You." With three of his closest friends as his backup singers, he melodically belted out the words, "I want to love you and treat you right. I want to love you every day and every night.” Nearly 13 years later, we are still committed to learning how to embody these words in our thoughts, words, and deeds everyday. It hasn’t been easy but the good days have outweighed the bad days. The emotional and financial investment in our love has yielded wonderful dividends. Now we can truly answer Bob Marley back when we say, "Yes, this is love, this is love, this is love, this is love that we’re feeling."