The Full Monty

Today is Monty’s birthday, so I wanted to write about him. Monty and I have been married for almost 24 years and were together for five years before that. So I’ve had the privilege of loving and being loved by Monty for nearly thirty years. Sometimes, I look at him across the supper table or next to me on the couch, and I marvel at a God who loved me so much that He gave me a man like Monty.

Monty is an extraordinary person, and I don’t say that just because he’s my husband. He teaches me more and more every day—about joy, about kindness, and about love. This passage from I Corinthians 13 was one of the readings at our wedding: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” As the years have passed, God has given me a master class in how to love—because Monty brings all of the words of that passage to life every single day.

Love is kind.  Monty treats everyone he meets with kindness—people and animals alike. Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character.” Based on that criterion, Monty has the best character of anyone I know. On the first cold day this past autumn, he left his coat on one of our kitchen chairs, and our cat Carrick instantly made a bed out of the coat. Monty has left his coat there since that day; he doesn’t have the heart to take it from Carrick.  Monty even took his favorite sweatshirt and added it to Carrick’s little nest to make it softer.

Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  Monty is humble, which is a rare trait considering the fact that he’s a genius. (That’s not just my opinion; it’s truth.) He can fix anything from electronics to computer problems to, well, me. He’s the software developer for our family business, and he taught himself all of the skills he needed to do that job and do it well. Yet he never calls attention to himself or expects recognition for what he’s done, in any area of his life.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.  This is a huge one for me—because if Monty did keep a record of wrongs, our marriage may not have survived my substance abuse. When I took the recovery step of making amends, Monty was the first one I made amends to. I wrote pages and pages of all of the things that I was sorry for.  Monty read it, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “It’s done.” He has never once brought up the mistakes I made. He’s never said that he doesn’t trust me because of my past. He celebrates every single sobriety marker with me, and if I ever start apologizing to him for what I put him through for all those years, he stops me. And tells me again, “It’s done.”

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. This is the part of that passage that describes Monty’s love in the best way. Monty stands in the gap for me and protects me—often from myself. He protects all the people he loves by stepping in when they need any kind of help. He always trusts, despite all the lies I told him when I was in active addiction. He always hopes—he has big dreams for us for the future and the highest hopes for me, especially for my writing. And Monty always perseveres. When I was struggling with addiction, he persevered in trying to get me help. He perseveres in his job, giving it his all and striving to do his best. He never gives up on the people he loves. Ever.

God has blessed me in countless, undeserved ways that I could never fully express my gratitude for—but mostly by giving me Monty’s love. My heart’s prayer is to love Monty the same way, and to learn to extend that love to people outside my comfortable little world. That’s what Monty does. And that kind of love not only covers a multitude of sins, it mends the heart of the sinner. I believe with all my heart that if we all learned to love the way I Corinthians 13 tells us to, with the full Monty kind of love, that we could change the world—person by person. Our broken, suffering world is starving for that kind of love–I can’t think of anything it needs more. Except maybe a million more Montys.