marriage

Signs, Confusion and Forever

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I confess, I’ve been known to take a shortcut or two. Time is a precious commodity in my life. Somehow, I’m convinced that I have less of it than most people, so occasionally, I improvise. Usually, it gets the job done so I don’t sweat the small stuff.

Still, there are suggested uses provided by manufacturers for a reason. This becomes apparent when I grab my favorite sweater out of the dryer only to realize it now needs to be passed down to an 8-year-old since it was intended to dry flat. Just like that, it’s gone.

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I must also confess that I’ve never taken the time to figure those dumb laundry labels out. When I do take the time to read the label, I’m greeted with Pictionary instead of language. I know I could easily look up their meanings, but ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’. So I guess and just wing it. It’s usually just fine, but not always…

But maybe the world operates on symbols and not just words. I get it in some cases. Road signs could become very tedious if we clearly spelled out the meaning on everyone. How many accidents would be blamed on “I was trying to read the sign”? Some things you just have to make an effort to learn. sign

I haven’t decided which category marriage falls into yet. Sometimes I find myself trying to decode the symbols and I just know I’m shrinking a sweater. I wish we could just find a way to clearly spell it all out so there would never be any confusion. Yet, there’s a lot of wisdom in NOT saying everything that pops into your head in the heat of argument. 

So maybe it’s just part of the adventure. There’s an art to marital communication. It’s a blend of language and charades, verbal and non-verbal, argue and make up.

Sure, I’m going to mess up A LOT, but you better believe I’m going to keep trying. I may be far from perfect, but forever is always worth the effort.

Adoration

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I’m sitting in a quiet room, baby in my arms. Soft and warm, nuzzled tightly to my chest breathing in. Tiny sighs and squeaks eek out occasionally as lips move to reflexive smile or the impulse to nurse though his mouth is empty. He sleeps and I adore him.

My husband lies across the room still, resting after a long day’s work. I watch him. Eyes closed, peaceful and strong and I am thankful. With strength and persistence he provides for us. So diligent, so faithful. Then loving, he comes home to me with smiles, a tender embrace and kind words. Now he sleeps and I adore him.

The sun is sitting low and casting light through the stained glass into my cozy little nest. the way it alters the hue and brings sparkle and shimmer to substance fills me with wonder. I don’t stop enough to admire the beauty.

Then he looks at me. Blue eyes lit with something deep and extraordinary. I become fully awake in the joy and love behind his eyes. I’m captivated. He is mine and I adore him.

 

Calm in the Midst of Chaos

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Wedding  “See! The winter is past, the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me” Song of Solomon 2:11-13

The past few weeks have been a bit chaotic. My husband and I have been running in a million different directions and juggling multiple projects and tasks until we hit the pillow each night in a state of soreness and exhaustion (the soreness from his being a carpenter and doing very physical work and from my being six months pregnant and achy). Most of the things we’ve been doing have been incredibly rewarding. Still some have just been requirements of life and business…I’d rather not spend my evenings pouring over bank statements and Quickbooks data, but it has to be done. Regardless, it’s been a whirlwind kind of month.

On February 4th, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It was such a wonderful time of refreshing for us. The preceding weekend had been jam-packed. We both worked that Monday morning and then at an appointed time, we met, left the world behind and focused on us. It was magical. I even forgot my cell phone at home (honestly, I didn’t mean to but I was so glad I did). There we were, just the two of us…a fabulous dinner, then a night away in the exact room we stayed in on our wedding night. We have a wonderful marriage everyday but there’s something about taking that extra time for one another, away from the world, that can be so valuable.

Shortly after breakfast the next morning, his phone started blowing up with small work emergencies and the world caught up with us. But for one night, we found the calm in the midst of the chaos. We found the ability to forget everything except for the things that matter the most, the covenant we have with each other, the remarkable blessing it is to find the one who God created just for you, the family and the life we’ve built together and our mutual commitment to Christ.

Today, on Valentine’s Day, I’m feeling especially sentimental. I see so clearly how all of the awful parts of my life, the pain I’ve endured, the mistakes I’ve made and the successes and victories I’ve claimed have brought me here to this moment when I can truly say that “The winter is past, the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come”. I can put the world aside and come away with my beloved daily. Together, we can dive into the water of the word and be refreshed. Together, we can work to build a marriage others can see and know that true love and commitment still exists. Together, we can do anything. All of the doubts I once had have been washed away by the grace of God and the love of a man who loves me as Christ loves the church. Fairy tales do come true.

Most importantly, I believe that God desires that we would find such times with him. He, our beloved, invites us to come away with him daily…To find refuge in the peace and safety of his love. He calls to us in the midst of the chaos and reminds us that he is altogether lovely. He brings us to a season of singing where nothing from the past or present can begin to interfere with the way he loves us. He hides us in the palm of his hand, in the shadow of his wings, in the cleft of the rock and then whispers ““O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, In the secret places of the cliff, Let me see your face, Let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, And your face is lovely.” Song of Solomon 2:14.

I invite you to hear the call of your beloved today and come away with him to your secret place. Find time to love and be loved by the ultimate comforter, Jesus Christ.

On Changes and Eggs

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I love to get a good deal. It’s almost a hobby. I say almost, because the truth is, I’m only obsessive about it sometimes and then I get bored. I guess I’m like that in a lot of areas, but I digress. One deal I recently ran into allowed me to get several new magazine subscriptions for free! Big smile!  FREE!!!!  (Mental picture of me standing on my dining room table screaming “Freedom” William Wallace style…don’t worry I didn’t really do that). I snagged some magazines for my hubby and a few that I’d never read but seemed relatively intriguing. I totally dig reading and sometimes crave the randomness found in a magazine so I was thrilled.

The crazy thing that I’m realizing though is that as I peruse through the articles before me, I find myself inspired in so many different ways. I’m instantly ready to try something new. Not earth shattering, morality, changing kind of stuff of course. As everyone who knows me can tell you I’m stubborn and opinionated about virtually everything of importance. Rather, I’m ready to try new things in the mundane areas of my life. I’m willing to completely reinvent my hairdo on a whim or change my wardrobe just to experiment. I’ll want to redecorate my house for no reason, other than maybe the kids left a mess so rather than just clean it, I’ll redo it ALL.

Maybe I should find some crazy art deco piece at a garage sale and paint the house to match or use it to inspire a new outfit or cut up an old outfit and sew it back together with remnants from other outfits to catch the spirit of the piece that so uniquely expresses me…or who I want to be.

I realize this sounds incredibly crazy. But the beauty of it is found in the fact that I am allowed to be who I am. I am free to be ME and I guess a part of me is still unburying who that really is from under my former life. I try not to talk too much about my past, but the truth is, here on the other side looking back I gain so much perspective and appreciation for where I am now.

I had an epiphany last week while stealing eggs from my husband. I cannot make that sentence make sense without a little bit of back-story, so indulge me.

My ex husband was extremely controlling (understatement alert). I wasn’t allowed to eat certain foods because he didn’t like them. That even sounds weird to me as I type it, but it was my life. Rather than fight and suffer the consequences of arguing with him, I ate my eggs scrambled for TEN years! (There were a myriad of other issues far more extreme than this that led to our divorce – disclaimer – I didn’t divorce over eggs…moving on). After the wedding, so many things that were uniquely me were forced into isolation. I had to hide who I was in so many areas for so long that I cannot describe the freedom that comes with being able to breathe again.

My daughter once told me that when I started dating my husband, there were things she thought were an act for his benefit that she later realized were actually the real me who she’d never known. A sad and scary sentence but it is so true. I am now a completely free woman who is married to her hero and best friend and who can eat her eggs any way she likes, which brings me full circle.

Last week, James was eating his breakfast and I stole a bite of his eggs (cooked over medium) and remembered that my entire life, minus ten ridiculous years, I ate my eggs over medium and now I am free to eat them that way again.

I can also wear clothes that I like. I can keep my hair short, long, medium, wavy, straight or in a bun. I can sing as loudly as I want in my own home. I can rearrange the furniture or paint the kitchen or cook for hours. I can work or clean or write or read or play my guitar without repercussions. I am FREE!!!

I’ve also learned that allowing myself to hide from who I am is insulting to me and to God who made me just like this and who cares about my silly thoughts. He loves me for me. My husband loves me for me. I am happy.

Why I Do & Don’t Work Out

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Everyone knows the benefits of exercise. Doctors, health & nutrition experts, personal trainers, magazine articles, advertisers and celebrities have been telling us for years that if we want to be healthy, we have to work it. For me, that fact alone has done very little to persuade me to get up & move, or worse yet…step away from the chocolate. I realize that there are those among you who can honestly say that health is your primary motivator for exercise but when I look around; I can’t help but think that the majority of the folks at the gym are there because they want to look better. I used to be one of them.

I grew up as one of the scrawniest people alive. I was ridiculously skinny as a child & teenager. My first pregnancy, I weighed in at 5 months pregnant a whopping 88 pounds. I’m 5’3″ tall. The only concern I had with weight was that I had not acquired any. At some point, after a few kids and a desk job, I crossed the line into “normal”. All of the sudden, I was just an average, thin person instead of a commercial for starving children. I was in the middle of a disastrous marriage in which every flaw I had was pointed out & magnified. I became terrified that one day I would look in the mirror and it would verify what the voices screaming in my ear everyday were telling me…that I really wasn’t good enough. So I worked out. I became obsessed with every “trouble zone”. I worked out in the morning before starting my day and did crunches & leg work in front of the TV at night. I knew I wasn’t fat, but I wanted to be better, whatever that was.

After my divorce from my first husband, I got worse. I didn’t mean to & I don’t know if I even knew it at the time, but I stopped eating breakfast and lunch. I continued to exercise & added to that the responsibility of walking my ex’s dog, that weighed more than I did, three times a day. I dropped back down to below the 100 pound mark which I’d tried so hard to get up to as a teenager. It was lunacy.

When I started dating my husband, something in me shifted. He spent time at the gym, but his focus was totally different from what mine had ever been. He truly wanted to be healthy & fit for all of the right reasons, while I’d been striving to be good enough. He began to love me to life. I began to realize that I’d been enough all along and that no amount or lack of lunges would change that.

For a time, I stopped exercising altogether. I think I needed that time to come to terms with the fact that my body doesn’t define me. At times it’s been hard. I’ve gained 25 pounds in the last year. I probably needed at least 15 of them. Sure, I got aggravated when my size 0 pants quit fitting. I cried once or twice when I couldn’t fit into anything in my closet. Still, I feel completely satisfied with who I am and that is a victory for me so I refuse to feel defeated by a few extra pounds.

I think sometimes, we need to really grasp a concept before we can move on. I needed those pounds. Now I can work out for the right reasons. I woke up this morning and I didn’t want to crawl out of bed and start working up a sweat but I did it anyway. That for me is the greatest treasure of exercise. It’s in the ability to cause our flesh to submit to what we know it should be doing. Romans 7:14-15 talks about man’s struggle with sin. “14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” I think the same concept applies here. We know that in order to be healthy & fit, we need to exercise, yet we don’t want to, so we don’t. For me, when I put my flesh into subjection & let it know that it doesn’t get a vote here, it is so fulfilling. I feel powerful & strong. I also know if I can make my body submit to exercise, I can make it submit to the Lord in other areas as well. I love that!

I work out for me. I work out for my kids, so that I can have the energy and stamina to play with them & do what I need to do to be a great mom. I work out for my husband so that I can be around for a long time and enjoy the wonderful life we have together. I work out for God (yes that sounds strange) but I know that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I need to be a good steward and take care of it. I work out so that I have energy. Sure, I want to look good, I want my husband to have a beautiful wife to come home to. I want to feel good about myself, but I’ve learned that I am beautiful even if I have a little cellulite. I am perfectly designed just the way that I am and finally, I’m okay with that.