I hope you don't mind that part of your Valentine's Day gift includes a blog post, but, as you know, I find it easiest to express myself in writing even if my words aren't always eloquent, and I don't mind if the world reads this.
I know you and many others view Valentine's Day as a silly, commercial holiday and think that, really, every day love should be celebrated, but some people, like myself, don't always do those things on "regular" days like we should. Therefore, I think it's especially important that today of all days I make sure to go out of my way to tell you I love you, celebrate our love, and speak your love language(s) to you.
Joshua Ryan, I love you with an everlasting love. (Jer. 31:3) I really do. I firmly believe you are the man God intended me to marry, to form a family with, have children with, live a life with. In the 11 years we've spent together (5 of which we've spent married), we've grown together, changed together, matured together, and been on many journeys (literal and figurative) together. We've had amazing, miraculous, joyful seasons, and we've had seasons of pain, anger, hurt, and grief, but because we knew from day one that our marriage wasn't just a relationship between the two of us, that God is at the center, we've been able to love along the way, love when it isn't easy, love when we don't feel like loving, even if we haven't always loved perfectly.
But that's the thing, we can't love perfectly. Some people think that when you're in love you feel like loving all the time and there are unspoken expectations of a perfect love, but the reality is that you don't always feel like loving someone all the time because love that's true love isn't a feeling, it's deeper. It's loving even when you don't want to or don't feel like it, even when you think the other doesn't deserve it. Love is deeper. Love is sacrificial. Love is selfless. Love is forgiving. And the only perfect love is Christ's. Finally, after all these years, I'm finally starting to see marriage, and our marriage and love, as God has designed it. I've finally given up expectations of perfection and idealized fairy tale dreams and realized we need to love each other as Christ loves us (something I knew from the beginning but haven't fully grasped until now). I need to love you as Christ loves you, serve you, make sacrifices for you, show you grace and forgiveness - all as exemplified as Christ's life which he lived and died for you, for me. And even in the darkest moments when I'm tempted to stop loving, I have still loved you, and it's actually in those times that God has given me great clarity to know that you are in fact the man He designed for me to love. The imperfect you, the sinful you, the "Army" you that makes life constantly changing and challenging, the wonderful you. You are my love.
I'm finally learning and taking to heart that marriage and love are about showing grace, offering forgiveness, being selfless, making sacrifices, seeking holiness, and bringing glory to God. It's hard and it takes hard work. Marriage isn't all about happiness and romance and fairy tales, but at times it can be and God has intended a deeper love for us, and I believe we have that.
No marriage is free from hardships, but sometimes I feel our marriage, only being 5 years young, has endured more than most. In those 5 years, we've lived in three states, which required three moves and "starting over" three times, we've lived miles apart and spent days and months apart, we've birthed two children, we've buried one, we've dealt with our imperfections and private sins along the way, we've been through a lot and have a lot more to endure, especially with your pending deployment, but I know our marriage and love will endure because of God's work in our lives.
Thank you for loving the imperfect me especially when I make it hard. Thank you for fighting for me and showing me our marriage is always worth fighting for. Thank you for your love, commitment, grace, and everything in between. With God's help, I am committed to being the wife He has designed me to be for you and to love you as He loves you, so that you see Him in me and our love can be made complete in Him.
I love you. I am proud of you. I am thankful to call you my husband and the father of our children. Hailey and Isaac are so loved by you and they will grow up in a home of love. I recently quoted this on Facebook, from Jerry Jenkins, "Your marital story should become a legend that is shared through the generations as you grow a family tree that defies all odds and boasts marriage after marriage of stability, strength, and longevity;" I think and hope that will be true of ours. May you always be captivated by my love (Proverbs 5:19 ).
Love you forever and always, me
P.S. I hate to just throw some scripture in at the end, but if I had more time, I'd try to weave them into my words... but our son and household duties are demanding my attention and I have to wrap this up quickly... But let us meditate on the verses God has spoken to us on love.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Song of Solomon 2:16 My lover is mine, and I am his
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Ephesians 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband
Colossians 3:14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity
1 Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
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