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What is Love?

Posted in Love, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Commitment, Forgiveness, Honoring, I will go, Love, Love is, Respect, Ruth 1, Sacrifice, Sacrificial, Trust, What is Love?, where you go, Work on February 13, 2012| 6 Comments »

After twenty-two years of marriage, let me tell you what I think love is …

Love is honoring … that means that you do what is best for the other person. It means that you make the other person look and sound good to others. Putting your significant other down puts your relationship down further … don’t do it!

Love is work. When you met you may have ‘fallen’ effortlessly in love with your sweetie … how … precious. Do not expect that staying in love will be so effortlessly. Staying ‘in love’ will take daily effort, and some days might take hourly effort. Remember old Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie would say wax on wax off … that is the kind of work it takes to keep the love machine rolling.

Love is sacrificial … if you thought work was gonna be tough, try sacrifice. This means that you give, before, not in response to, receiving. Hum, that means you do what is best for the other person, even if it means you have to stretch, or bend. or even watch the football movie, Rudy, for the millionth time, just because it is his favorite movie, and you would rather watch P. S. I Love You (that does go both ways though, just remember, sacrifice is not sacrifice if we do it SO THAT our significant other will do back for us).

Love is respect … mutual respect. It is looking at your other half as a whole. It is seeing their value through the eyes of one who created them. It is seeing them as valuable because their Creator is made them with purpose, as He did you.

Love is trust. A relationship is not a loving one if there is not trust of the other person. When one lays their life in the hands of another, intimacy is only present if trust is as well.

Love is forgiveness, because if you are in love with a human, you will need to learn to forgiven. There will be times when Mr. or Mrs. (or Ms.) right does something wrong … there will be times when you (and I) are the ones who are doing the wrong … if love is to survive, forgiveness must thrive.

Love is commitment … that means you stay together, for the long haul. There are no escape clauses, there are no backup plans. If it is love, it is committed, or it is not love.

“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.
Your people will be my people and your God my God.
Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.”
Ruth 1:16-17

And that is what I think love is.

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What Makes a Love Story?

Posted in life, Love, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Commitment, Disney, Disney Pixar, Love, Love Story, Marriage, Stephanie Mayer, Twilight, Up, What Makes a Love Story? on January 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

I saw the quote to the left the other day, and pondered it’s words and message.

I have read all of the “Twilight” series (minus the last … one day I will get it read too) and really enjoyed the story it told. I also think that Stephanie Mayer is a brilliant and captivating story writer. But, would I call the Twilight books a love story? No.

And then I re-watched a video clip from the Disney-Pixar hit, “Up” …

It was in the short second half of the eight minute clip that starts the movie, that a love story is told in a most sensitive, genuine and real way. It is in the story telling of the life story of Carl and Ellie that a love story is constructed.

It is the story of a couple who were not perfect, who were not popular, who were not wealthy, who were not successful in all that they pursued, who did not achieve all that they had set out and dreamed of doing.

But, it was also the story of a couple who worked together, who dreamed together, who experienced joys and sorrows together, who were committed to each other … together. And it is that, their mutual commitment and doing together that enabled them to live the love story.

That is my idea of a love story. And I don’t believe that you need to be animated to live it!

Check it out …

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Forever Scarred

Posted in life, Love, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Committments., Forever, Future, Impression, Leonard Cohen, Love, Marriage, Past, Permanent, Present, Scarred, Scars, Vows, Wedding on January 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Impressions come in many forms. There are the impressions we make on others, either by how we look, or act, or how we make them feel. There are also impressions, like the ones that imprint a physical lasting mark, like a tattoo or a scar.

I have an impression, a scar, on my left ring finger. It is an indelible impression, one that will never go away, one that is permanent.

Over a year ago I noticed a frustratingly itchy rash on my ring finger, the ring finger where I wore my wedding ring. I figured the best was to alleviate the non-stop irritation was to remove my wedding ring.

Sure enough, it worked! Not over night, but eventually (and with the use of a good healing cream), the rash and it’s nasty irritation were gone.

But, I have yet to return to wearing my wedding band. I had gotten out of the habit of wearing it, and that is really saying something, because, other than the few times I was in a hospital, I had never removed my wedding ring (night or day) since my husband placed it on my finger, over twenty-two years ago.

Now, over a year after removing it, there is an impression of that ring still visible on my finger.

It has faded a bit, but only slightly. I have been altered by the symbol of the vow I made all those years ago. It is a permanent scar, forever there to remind me of that vow I made with my words.

That is what the impression of a scar does, it reminds us. It can remind us of when we were a child and suffered a deep wound. A scar reminds us of the surgery that may have saved our life. A scar reminds us of pain.

But a scar, like the one on my ring finger, can also remind us of the hope of a new life with someone, of dreams fulfilled, and ones yet to happen. It can remind us of overcoming pain, of beating struggles, of memories made, and secrets shared and children shared, and a sense of oneness with another that can only be shared by two who bear the same scars.

One of these days I will pull that gold band back out (or maybe hubby will) and place it back on my finger. Until then, there is a permanent scar, an indelible impression that reminds me every day of the past, and the present, and the future to come.

“Children show scars like medals.

Lovers use them as secrets to reveal.

A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”

Leonard Cohen

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Disowned

Posted in GOD, Love, WONDER, tagged Choose God, Disowned, Everlasting Love, His Love Endures Forever, Jeremiah 31:3, Love, Psalm 136 on November 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The website, freedictionary.com, defines ‘disowned’ as “to refuse to acknowledge or accept as one’s own.”

As a daughter, I cannot imagine being disowned by my parents. I know that I might choose to reject my parents, and their love. I may even choose to disown them (although I cannot personally imagine making that choice). But, I am certain that their love for me will never fail.

As a parent it is impossible to me to fathom disowning one of my children. My love for them is not dependent on them (their actions or their choices), for it is a parent-love, one which is only defined by their being mine. They are a part of me, they are inseparable from me. There is no way for me to see them as anything but mine.

I know that has not been the case for all. There are horrible stories that we have all heard of abuses, and rejections and even of parents disowning their own children. In some cases parents have even chosen to disown their own child due to a behavior or choice of the child. For those who are reading this, who have experienced the deep and damaging rejection that accompanies parental disowning, I offer my most sincere sympathies. I cannot imagine the heartache and confusion that would cause a person.

As a child of God, I have a choice. I can choose to accept, or reject (disown) the love of my Father. He has given me the ability to choose, because He is not a demanding, guilt-inducing, self-gratifying Father. He wants me to choose His love, He wants my choice to be one of personal acceptance of Him, and all that He offers.

He gives me the choice to disown Him.

But, no matter what choice I make, he still loves me. Jeremiah 31:3 says of God’s love, “I have loved you with an everlasting (eternal) love; I have drawn you with (or continue to show you) unfailing kindness. His love for us is not dependent on us, because He loves us with Father-God love. Oh, we can still mess up, and natural consequences come from that. But, He still loves us.

There is someone who I believe needs to realize this. There is someone who I think might read this today, who does not realize that the greatest evidences of unconditional love that they have received in this life has been a God-like, parental love. It is this Father-God love that is available to you … now.

And it is your choice.

Psalm 136

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.

to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.

to him who divided the Red Seaasunder
His love endures forever.
and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.

to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.

to him who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
an inheritance to his servant Israel.
His love endures forever.

He remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
and freed us from our enemies.
His love endures forever.
He gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.

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One Flesh

Posted in GOD, life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Genesis 2, Marriage, One Flesh, One Person, Together on October 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

One flesh … just the combination of those two words makes us blush, or snicker, or raise our eyebrows at each other … in church. And when your adolescent child refers to yourself and your hubby as ‘one flesh’, well, then you know you have a story to tell.

It is not as if our kids have not heard the the phrase ‘one flesh’ before. It is one they have probably heard at church, at school (they attend a Christian school), and at home. The context in which they are familiar with it is from Genesis 2:21-24 :

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

So, for our kids, it is simply a statement of fact … until … they reach adolescents, and their sexual awareness awakens. Then they too will blush and snicker when they hear those words. Recently though, hubby and I were ‘accused’ … at the dinner table … of being one flesh. You can imagine the looks that hubby and I shared, along with raised eyebrows. The mutual look at each other communicating, non-verbally, “they have no idea how true it is,” just about had us both in uproarious laughter.

Then, one of us had the ability to control our laughter and ask what they meant. The response was great! “Well you two are similar in how you answer us, and how you want us to live that you are like one person.” We all laughed, but hubby and I looked at each other, one of those eye-locked moments when we were truly of one mind, as we contemplated what was said.

I do not think there could be a more desired, less hoped for compliment that our kids could ever say of us.

You see our marriage is as far from perfect as is possible, we have both wronged each other in more ways than either of us would ever admit to any other living human being, and there have been numerous times when (validly, for the standards of the day and time we are living) we have both stayed together for the long term health and benefit of our kids. We have failed our vows and original commitment to each other over and over. We are individually, and together, flawed flesh.

Yet, out of the mouths of our babe, came the most beautiful words. And then it hit me, our ‘oneness’, our being ‘one flesh’ has far more to do with the one who put us together, the one who made us for the other, than anything that hubby or I could ever do. The story of our being ‘one flesh’ is one that reveals the Maker, and the miracles He does, despite our fleshly humanness.

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I Hate Divorce

Posted in life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Abuse, Broken Homes, Divorce, I Hate Divorce, Irreconsibable Differences, Teens of Divorce on October 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

I HATE divorce!

That is the thought that crosses my mind almost every day at work. There is a moment, in just about every day that I go to work, when something happens, or I see something that reminds me of my disdain for the word divorce, and how devastating it is to those who it touches.

Please know that I am not one who believes that a woman (or man) should stay in a marriage where they are being truly abused by their spouse. No one should stay in a home, a marriage which is dangerous or harmful to their health. If indeed abuse is the impetus for divorce, and not irreconcilable differences, but the numbers might indicate more of the later than the former.

Working in a school gives me plenty of opportunities to see the effects of divorce on the children (adolescent and teenage) of the couples who have dissolved their marriages. These effects walk through the doors of schools by the dozens and hundreds, every day. I am amazed at the increasing numbers of students from divorced parents. I am even more amazed at how profoundly it does effect these developing adults.

I watch students struggle to do school work, when their hearts are breaking. I watch teens anxiety with … well, being teens (and all that comes with that package), while dealing with the lack of a sense of security that comes from mom or dad moving out. I watch adolescence struggle with peer relationships while also dealing with relationships with mom’s new boyfriend, or dad’s new girlfriend.

These students are individuals who I feel such pity for, and who I admire greatly at the same time. They have such pain in their lives, and yet they show such strength to get through each day.

It was heartbreaking, one day, to look around at a group of students who I was familiar with. Almost half of the students in the grouping were from homes of divorced parents. I heard them discuss marriage, and divorce. Those students whose parents were divorced were the most adamant that couples needed to work harder, and not give up so easily. They also expressed that people needed to stop thinking of divorce as a way to end their problems.

How interesting that it was the ones who had been most affected by divorce who had the most uncompromising views of it. Maybe it was because, like me (in my experiential ignorance) they hate divorce. And, in their cases, they know what they are saying (or thinking) is true, because it is the life they live.

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What Saved Our Marriage … in Bed

Posted in life, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Bed, in Bed, Marriage, Sleep, Television, What Saved our Marriage on October 3, 2011| 2 Comments »

With our anniversary just last week, I’ve had marriage on my brain.

After twenty-two years we have had a spat or two. We have had our struggles with co-existing together. We have had times when it has seemed that we have had more differences than similarities.

A few years back I found something that may just have saved our marriage from complete and utter ruin. It is something that is so simple, and is available to all. It is also a cure without any cost (except for those who do not have this at their disposal).

My cure has made such a profound change in our marriage, that I am actually thinking of finding a publisher who would jump at the chance to publish and sell this idea to the public. I am convinced that it could top the New York Times Best Seller list. I am convinced that the title alone is one that Oprah would publish.

Now, you may be wondering when I might be telling you the secret, and the title, of this marriage enriching, life changing book … but, I am a little hesitant to tell you too quickly. I fear that you will read the title of my book, laugh hysterically, and then click off my blog post to look for a more ‘serious’ approach to marriage enhancement. This is a serious topic, and this approach did seriously improve my marriage … particularly in bed!

Okay, if you promise, in your heart (like, cross your heart, hope to die, stick a finger in your eye … kind of promise) to not click off my post until you read to the end, then I will share my secret with you … yes? Okay then, here it goes … the title of my best selling (well, in the future) book is … “How Moving a Television into our Bedroom Saved our Marriage.”

D O N ‘ T go to another blog, or Facebook, or Tetris … keep reading … it might save your marriage too!

You see, hubby and I, we are certainly a study in contrasts. Sometimes I think that the only thing we have in common is our three kids! He likes salty, I like sweet. He likes road trips, I like airplanes. He likes going to sporting events, I like going for a walk. He is a night hawk, I am a morning person.

It is in the last set of contrasts that our marriage was suffering. We almost never went to bed together! I am ready almost any night, any time after 8pm to crash my head onto my pillow … hubby is usually not ready until closer to 11pm. So, one day I (yes, I, not hubby) suggested we move a small television into our bedroom. And we did.

This meant that, finally, we would climb beneath the sheets at the same time. I lay my head on my pillow and start snoring (so hubby says), and he watches every news and sports highlight program available. And we can be together 🙂 Sometimes we even climb in bed and talk about our days, or have visits from one of the kids, or sleep, or don’t sleep …

Whatever it is we do once we get into bed, we get to spend the time there together … it is so much better than climbing into bed alone.

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Wedding Day Memories

Posted in life, Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged Anniversary, Life, Marriage, Memories, Wedding, Wedding Day Memories, Wonder on September 30, 2011| 3 Comments »

Memories are funny things. There are some details of the past that we remember, and other details are forgotten forever.

Twenty-two years ago today I went to a high school football game. My brother was playing on one of the teams, and my fiance was coaching that same team. It was a perfect autumn day … the sun shining brightly, the air crisp, the leaves on the trees in the early stages of turning from bright green to hues of gold and red. It is a day I remember so well, because it was the day of the biggest argument of our dating relationship … the day before our wedding.

I have no idea what we were arguing about, I can only remember the intensity of the emotions I felt. Obviously, whatever it was that had vexed us was resolved, and the following day I met him at the end of the aisle, where we traded in our individual lives for a future together.

The memories of our wedding day decrease with each passing year. If there are this many fewer memories after twenty-two years, will I even remember that I am married in twenty-two more?

But, what I do remember are the vivid broad strokes of our day.

I remember that our wedding started late, and it wasn’t because I was trying to be fashionably late … our soloist was flying into New Brunswick from Toronto, and his flight was late.

I remember that the pastor we had to marry us thought he was at a preach-a-thon … he spoke for about an hour after the processional, before actually marrying us.

I remember that my mother in law wore gray … much cheerier than the black that her mother wore at her wedding.

I remember that, as I looked at my groom awaiting me at the end of the aisle, he was gray (like his mother’s dress), and looked as though he might pass out … so much for the groom’s look of awe at the brides glowing beauty …

So, not all memories are so sweet 😉 but, alas, my memories of our wedding day were also not all so depressing.

I remember a twinge of regret as my dad ‘gave me away’ to my groom.

I remember how confident I felt as I repeated my vows, and said ‘I do.’

I remember that when my groom slipped his ring (a most simple band) on my finger I could not imagine a more wonderful, a more exquisite piece of jewelery in the world.

I remember gladly signing my name on the marriage license.

I remember driving off to our honeymoon (a trip, by car, of over 3000 miles … one way … and hubby wonders why I have little interest in road trips), reliving the details of the day, together.

The memories of that day fill my mind and my heart at times like this, when we remember and celebrate our corporate survival, and our hope of many years to come.

Happy Anniversary Hubby

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Endurance

Posted in Love, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Endurance, Life, Love, Marathon, Marriage, Memories, Race, Short Track on September 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It is a rare thing for an athlete to have both a gifting for speed and for endurance. The short track runner needs to have the human equivalent of fuel injection … they need to start fast and keep it going to the end. The marathon runner needs to be able to pace his or her self … it is a long run, and so their energies need to be spread out over a longer period of time, running consistently until they cross the finish line.

Endurance has become, in our society, a word associated primarily with athletics. I am no athlete, but I do know that my natural tendency in living is that of the short track runner.

I can start well, I have amazing energies for short term projects (and if they are long term, they are still sitting, unfinished, in a closet in my house), I am fantastic at responding in a crises, I am a confident trouble-shooter. I struggle to know how to be balanced, I struggle to start anything slowly, I can easily shelve any project or problem when I get bored of it. I struggle to keep going when I cannot see the finish line.

When I think of the word endurance, I think … marriage.

This week hubby and I will celebrate twenty-two years of marriage together. To some we have already run a marathon (amen to that), and to others we have only completed a short track event. To us … it depends on the day 😉

Twenty-two years is more than half of my life (I was married w a y too young, at twenty … now your brains are all doing the math). I have quite literally grown up with my hubby. We have gone through our twenties together, we have gone through our thirties together, and now we are speeding through our forties (he, of course, is speeding through them MUCH faster than I). We have had the joys of sharing the births of our three children, and the sorrows of losing five others. We have moved, quite literally, from east to west, together. We have loved and learned and lived … together.

When we were first married, we were both so into it! We were so focused on each other, on making sure that we were meeting each others needs. We wanted to please each other, we wanted to love each other. As life has moved on our focus on each other has been back-seated by the million and one other important things in life … children, jobs, home, yard, church, friends, etc., etc., etc. It is so easy to see the motivation behind the Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond hit “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” …

She He

You don’t bring me flowers                                        You hardly talk to me anymore
You don’t sing me love songs                                     When you come through that door at the end of the day…
I remember when you couldn’t wait to love me
Used to hate to leave me
Now after loving me late at night                              When it’s good for you, babe.
When you just roll over and turn out the light… And you’re feeling all right
And you don’t bring me flowers anymore

Those memories of early in the relationship ‘short track’ love, can be a great and horrible wedge once you are into the endurance run of ’til death do us part’ marriage. It is so easy to remember and reminisce about the new (and young) love stage of relationship. Often it is easier to remember it than it is to maintain it. And it is easier to remember what your spouse used to do for you and I, than to remember what you (I) used to do for them.

This marriage thing … it is definitely an endurance run. And, it is a tandem run, as well … it means that the success or failure of your marriage is dependent on both runners giving their all, all the time. Keeping pace with where your partner is heading. Being alert to possible ailments or distractions, for yourself, and for your partner. It also means that, at times, you will be the stronger one, and you will need to pull them along when they are weak, or ill, or just not on top of their race. But another key element to running the race together is rehydrating, refreshing each other … sometimes that refreshment comes from being apart, but usually it means making time to be together.

Like water to a weary runners body, time away, as a couple is not just a nice thing to do, but it is necessary if the marriage is to be kept alive. Sometimes it can be accomplished as easily as taking a walk together, or going to bed early and locking the door (there is nothing so disturbing to adolescent and teenage children, as a closed parents bedroom door, BEFORE they go to bed … their response is equal to the classic ‘heebie-jeebies’ … personally I am thinking of investing in a ‘do not disturb’ sign … just to keep shocking them … I figure my goal in life is to shock them before they shock me 🙂 … but, I digress). Sometimes it is a dinner out … not with another couple, but alone, making eye contact and talking. And, sometimes it is a day or more away, together, to reconnect just as a couple, and rediscover what it is that drew you both together in the first place (sometimes that is more advantageous than what is keeping you together presently … if it is not a happy and productive leg of the marathon).

So, we pace ourselves, my hubby and I … and hopefully we can make a time of refreshment possible … so that we can keep pressing on to the finish line … together, in tandem.

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I Miss Everything about You

Posted in Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged I Miss You, Love, Marriage on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

All day this song has been going through my head …

I’m not sure if it was watching the recent Royal Wedding, or hormones, or, simply enough is enough … I want hubby back home!

He left on March 22 (my birthday, but I’m not bitter …), with our youngest two. They drove to Florida (?????), as part of his sabbatical. After just short of four weeks our oldest daughter and I flew (we are much smarter) to Florida to spend a week with them, and bring home our younger daughter. So, now I’ve been back (without son and hubby) for over a week, and I’ve had enough!

I loved sleeping alone … for the first few weeks … no snoring (or, at least no one to tell me I am snoring), no news programs at bedtime (only DIY Network), no middle of the night traipsing to the bathroom (there’s no one there to startle me, while he’s doing the traipsing … and seat warming), no house-awakening sighs, because the dogs breathing woke him up (maybe because the beast is sleeping on his side of the bed?).

But now, I am not loving the solo bed experience … no one to warm my eternally chilled tootsies, no one to explain the news to me (really I do get it on my own, but I like how he tells it, better than Lloyd Robertson), no one to kiss good night (although the beast does love to hug), no one to say … I love you …

Separation has been good. And I even recommend it! And, honestly, we needed it. It has been … a … year(s) …

So many things get in the way of loving each other. But mostly it is our individual, independent, focus that keeps us from concentrating on striving for ‘us’. His job, my job, his responsibilities, my responsibilities, even ‘our’ kids. But if the pyramid (and I’m not talking some Amway pyramid scheme) of our priorities is out of whack, then everything crumbles.

As I sit here, I realize that we give lip service to how God is no. 1, our marriage is no. 2, our kids are no. 3 … but where do we spend our time? Matthew 6:21 says, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I guess you could even substitute ‘treasure’ with time (where you spend most of your time, that’s where your heart really is), or money (where you spend most of your money, that’s where your heart really is), or thoughts (what you spend most of your time thinking about, that’s where your heart really it). Either way, I know I have been a hypocrite in what I say is my treasure, and where I spend my time, my money, and my thoughts.

So, hubby …

“I miss those blue eyes

how you kiss me at night,

I miss the way we sleep

I miss the way we breath

I miss everything about you

After all the things we’ve been through

I miss everything about you” …

There’s more I miss … but mom is probably reading this one! 😉

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