This handsome guy whisked me away for our 10 year anniversary this past weekend!! It was our first night away alone since having Justus 5 years ago! We obviously need to get out more ;) No, actually it's really hard for me to leave my little ones.... But, that guy down there is pretty darn important to me, and I know we need time for the two of us. We had a really good time just hanging out and not having anywhere to be at any specific time!
When I sat down to write this post I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say. Tyler and I have been through quite a bit in the past 10 years together. Marrying young kind of means "growing up" together sometimes. We were 19 & 21. (Someone jokingly called me a cougar recently. Ha! Funny thing is I was totally against younger guys...God has quite a senses of humor!) There has been job loss and depression, PTSD (I should tell that story sometime!) and hurt, foreclosure and living in my parent's garage for two years.... But, there has also been LOVE and JOY and PEACE that passes all understanding.
The thing is...all of those moments of pain and uncertainty have brought us to this place where we now stand. There were times in the midst of it all that I thought we'd never see clearly again. And yet here we are. We are still in that garage (it was two years in December), but we have changed. Our circumstances haven't necessarily changed, but our hearts have. We are doing things that even a year ago were not possible for us. God has brought us out of painful times in a miraculous way.... And it's not miraculous in the sense that it happened overnight in a flurry, but actually just the opposite. He moved in time and with peace and yet it's still a miracle to behold. A miracle of the every day sort that I pray I always remember. Of course, it's fitting it would happen that way for the girl that would prefer His answers were written in the sky with permanent ink ;)
There really aren't words to express how proud I am of the amazing man that God has blessed me with. And more than that, I am grateful that He took my distorted idea of LOVE and replaced it with a true understanding of the 'act of love'. Through everything I feel like I have received a mere glimpse of the love that God has for His children. I have seen that love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). That true love takes work and sweat and tears...and sometimes always living life with open hands. Because that man I love so very much isn't really mine...he is a gift from above. And as hard as it is for me to accept sometimes, I have learned that my husband is ultimately the Lord's. That one of the greatest gifts I can give him is to always remember that he is a Child of God trying to find a way in this crazy world. I think that has been one of the biggest lessons I have learned (and am still trying to put into practice ;)... that I have to let go of my unrealistic expectations of this man and realize that he is just that...a man. God is the only one that can love me perfectly without fail. He must be my strength, my ultimate comforter... My First Love.
And I have found that when I love with open hands, there is freedom....
2 comments:
wonderful. thanks so much for sharing!
Beautiful, my friend. You don't know how many times I've thought of you during my blog break and wondered how you were doing. It is great to read that joy in your words. :0)
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