Date Night

09.12.10

Date Night

Last night, my wife and I were able to take a unique night away from our son and truly engage eachother's attention and love.  

What a blessing it was to have our good friends stop over to watch, hold, play, and laugh with our 5 1/2 month old boy.  We rested easy knowing that our son was in the BEST of hand...

Our night started with a romantic dinner at the local Cracker Barrel, as on of our fellow servant leaders blessed us with a gift cards for there.  We intentionally decided to go to the "restaurant" early evening-ish at 4:30PM, to beat the dinner crowd.  

We sat down, and subsequently pulled out a deck of playing cards.  The game of choice became "golf" where each person is dealt 4 cards, and has to exchange them with the pile for the lowest combination score.  

The game could have been ANYTHING, quite frankly... as it merely served as a common activity to support our conversation and emotional exchange of flirtation.  For the first time in a long while, we PLAYed.

PLAY has become a concept of focus for me lately.  The concept of PLAYing is intriguing, as it opens the mind up to a world of ideas, dreams, and visions.  PLAY relieves stress, it creates fond memories, and it invites euphoric laughter and joy that no medicine can touch!

From the restaurant, our date night progressed as we went to a Saturday evening church service!  Worshiping our Heavenly Father, arm in arm, prayer in prayer, linked up before the Throne of God.  AWESOME.  We expressed our love for God through prayer, song, and the message.  I fell in love with my bride, my best friend, and my lover all over again in the presence of God and these witnesses...

Ironically enough, the pastor spoke on parenting.  

Next on our romantic hit parade was the local "Cold Stone Creamery" equivalent, where we enjoyed freshly mixed concoctions of icy sweetness.  Again, the playing cards busted out... and laughter ensued.  She won, every game.  But the marriage won both our hearts.

We finished up, and headed out for the final segment of our blissful evening... Target.  (Had to return some diapers, and select a more "leak proof" brand...)  But the task was merely a decoy... My wife and I chose to engage in further PLAY while at Target...

... We played TAG!

Dodging through clothing racks and display shelves, taunting each other with flirtatious grins and covert "tag backs"... we PLAYed in mind, body, and spirit while at this retail store.  Shopping for diapers had never been more fun.  (we even established a "Goul" -- which is a safe zone/object. while you are touching it you can't get tagged "it"... remember that as a kid????!!!)

Wrasslin' around like this brought back fond childhood memories of neighborhood "hide & go seek" and "tag" missions we PLAYed as kids.  Fond, joyous, euphoric memories of an unbridled spirit... not tainted with responsibility, jobs, burdens, stresses, and hurts.

Who ever said childsplay was a bad thing?  We were completely respectful of the store, other patrons, and displays.  We didn't do any damage at all, other than to our own egos.  

We PLAYed.  We LOVEed.  We really ENJOYED ourselves.

Call it what you will, but my wife and I had probably one of the most memorable and romantic date nights last night... total cost of about $10.  It wasn't about WHAT we did... but rather HOW we did it.  

We made a choice to PLAY, and are glad we did!

I wonder how this simple lesson may relate to work? ministry? teams? or any other potentially task oriented event?  

PLAY is good.  Go for it!