True Love

This is what love looks like on Facebook:

My husband made chocolate-covered strawberries!  Thanks, sweetie!  I love you!

Image: thanunkorn

 This is what love looks like in real life:

On Friday, I buy strawberries at the store and tell my husband what they're for.

Saturday morning, our alarm clock (the baby) wakes us up at 6:40am.  After my husband gets the baby, I ask him about something he was going to do a few weeks ago.  My asking turns to nagging.  My nagging turns to criticism.  My husband leaves the room, taking the baby with him.  (Always take the baby with you if you're trying to make a point.)

As I wrap up the kids' breakfast (two hours after I started), I remind my husband that I'm having lunch with a friend but that I will be back before the baby's naptime to nurse her.  When I get back from lunch 15 minutes before the baby's normal naptime, I find out that my husband already put her down because he didn't know when I would be getting home.

I get upset that I rushed home and skipped several errands to make it for the baby's nap.  We fold laundry together in silence.  I'm still mad, so I go check the tire pressure on my car and fill one of the tires with our manual pump.  I'm still mad, so I go outside to do yardwork.  As I'm angrily hacking away at the hedges, my husband makes chocolate-covered strawberries.

He burns the first batch of chocolate and leaves the pot in the sink for me to wash because he's not sure how to wash it out.  The second batch turns out beautifully.

Yardwork successfully burns away most of my anger.  After showering, I shove several chocolate-covered strawberries into my mouth while standing in front of the fridge so that my toddler won't see me.  I wash out the burnt-chocolate pot.

That evening, after we've put the kids down, we look at each other with weary eyes.  "Life is really tiring," my husband says, "but I'm glad I have you to spend it with."  He smiles at me.

"Thanks, sweetie.  I'm glad I have you, too."

We go to bed exhausted, knowing that we will be woken again at the crack of dawn the next day - to another day of coaxing a picky eater, taming temper tantrums, wrestling with a baby on the changing table, wiping snot from dripping noses.  I might get impatient.  We might argue.  But I never have to wonder if this is the last straw.  Because I know he meant it when he said he would stay with me for better or for worse.  And that?  That's true love.

"Good night, I love you," he says.

"Good night, I love you, too."

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Visions for the new year

When I was in college, I attended a talk where the speaker was casting a vision for the new year.  I don't remember the speaker or the vision, but I remember how he defined vision:

the intoxicating dream that hurls you into pursuit of that reality

I think this wins the prize for packing the most number of loaded words into one definition.  Intoxicating.  Dream.  Hurls.  Pursuit.  Reality.

Image: Salvatore Vuono

I'm extremely grateful for the ways I was challenged in college to pursue a radical lifestyle and for books like Crazy Love and Don't Waste Your Life.  However, sometimes I feel that I have only been equipped to live a life full of adventure, travel, physical hardship for the sake of God's glory, and if I am honest with myself, personal glory.  But I have been ill-equipped to live a quiet life with little to no personal glory or adventure.  Lately, I am in need of inspiration more along the lines of:

• Contentment with leading a quiet life
• Joy in the midst of boredom
• The work of Christ in domestic matters (if there is such a thing)
• Laying down your life for your husband and children
• Toddler evangelism

These are my "visions" for how I will eventually grow as a wife and mother.  More sobering than intoxicating.  And moving at a reluctant snail's pace rather than hurled into pursuit.

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For better or for worse

Men can be pretty clueless most of the time.  I asked my husband to pick up some winter squash for one of our meals this week, and he came home with decorative gourds.  I know a guy whose wife had the baby blues after having each of their kids, and he said, "I don't know why she was depressed.  I mean, she just had a baby, so shouldn't she be happy?"

Image: nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On the other hand, men can be exceedingly patient and compassionate, despite not knowing what's going on.  When I asked my husband whether or not he thought I had postpartum depression, he said, "No."  He later claimed that he was afraid saying yes would cause me to feel sorry for myself and get even more depressed.  Whether he really knew I had postpartum depression or not, what matters is how he treated me.  We had the same conversation almost every day.  "What should I do?  Will I ever feel normal again?  What if I'm like this for the rest of my life?  Do you wish I would stop being this way?"  And every day he engaged in this conversation with me with patience and a listening ear.  It wasn't just my depression and anxiety he had to put up with either.  I was irritable and angry, and my husband bore the brunt of it.  He later told me that he literally had to recite Bible verses to himself on the way home from work to be able to face whatever he was coming home to.

One time near the end of one of my counseling sessions, I was talking about my husband and how he had an unwavering faith in God.  He read the Bible, prayed, and did memory verses every day.  He reminded me that God was good.  He told me that God loved me.  He trusted God to heal me.

And then I cried.

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Birth begins with loss

With the birth of each of my two children, I went through a mourning period.

I cried for the loss of my marriage when I had my first child. My husband and I were still married and committed to each other, but I knew things would never be the same. People say that your children shouldn’t be the center of your life. But how do you not center your life around your baby when she constantly needs your attention?

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With the birth of my second child, I cried for the loss of the only child relationship I had with my first daughter. When my oldest daughter first saw me in the hospital after having my second, she was hesitant to come toward me. It broke my heart. For the next week or so, I couldn’t look at my first child without crying.

The loss that I felt with each birth was devastating, probably not proportional to what I was actually mourning. I would cry uncontrollably at home and in public. I woke up from sleep crying. I cried during meals. Any sad thought would cause me to break down into tears. But like most bouts of crying, the crying also somehow felt good, like an emotional cleansing. I suppose you can’t welcome something new into your life until you’ve first said good-bye to the old.

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