Orange

“Orange!?” I was incredulous. At a church potluck several years ago, we all stood and introduced ourselves, described our favorite animal and preferred color. I will overlook the fact that he named ME his favorite animal, but when he said his favorite color was orange, I was stunned….but not speechless. “I’ve been married to you for twenty-six years,” I blurted, “and this is the first time you have ever told me you liked orange!” He replied “yeah, and you like licorice!” He was referring to a shopping trip where I had placed a bag of red licorice in our cart, surprising the man who had never known I liked it.

This week he floored me by coming out of the bedroom dressed in his beach togs: swim trunks, flip-flops (slippers) and sun-blocking t-shirt. “Where are you going?” I asked. “I thought we’d go to the beach today….” said the man who never swam, never went into the water, never was seen without jeans and work boots until we moved here to Hawaii.

How can it be that we live together, we cook, hike, worship, play music together, share his painting and my writings, and yet we are so clueless as to each other’s likes? Psalm 139 :1-3: “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.” Orange? Licorice? Beach? In the long run, it doesn’t matter, because God knows our hearts, and after thirty-three years, it’s kind of fun to learn new things about him.