Skip to main content

Love Is




As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking about how odd it is to put a day on the calendar reminding us to show our love to others. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE holidays, date nights and dressing up! I love celebrating the ones I love, thinking of thoughtful gifts and having a reason to jot down special words for them. I also truly believe celebrating each other, setting aside special times and even funds to share our love will encourage and fan the flames in our relationship, making it stronger over time.
Date night!
But here's what has me thinking this week… I hope I never need a calendar (or social media) reminder to “love” the ones closest to me. You know, the ones easy to overlook sometimes.
I hope to remember that every day is a chance to show love. It’s easy to act lovingly when we feel loved: 

  • when the sun is shining and skies are blue
  • when we’re by the ocean or in the mountains
  • when we’ve carved out time for each other
  • when we feel all the lovey feels
  • when we are not distracted by work, stress, kids or social media
  • when we’re dressed up fancy
  • when we're out on a date 
  • when there’s money in the bank to to pay the bills 
  • when there’s no tension between us, no dirty dishes in the sink or diapers to change
Life is perfect at the beach. 
But how many everyday moments are “perfect” like that? If only life was that easy, we would all be living a Disney-fairytale-kind-of-life. 
Loving one another in the day-to-day looks a little bit more like serving one another to me. 

  • starting the coffee or getting the kids’ breakfast so she can sleep longer 
  • clean-up the kitchen or making dinner for the fam
  • getting him a glass of water (or tea, wine, Coke...whatever floats your boat) 
  • starting a bath and swooping the kids away so she can relax and recharge
  • insisting he take some time away when you can tell he's hit a wall
  • a sweet note or text out of the blue
  • paying the bills...and working hard so bills can get paid
  • taking out the trash
  • picking up the messes
  • mowing the grass
  • watching chick flicks instead of war movies {or vice versa}
  • eating what sounds good to the other person for dinner
  • sharing the last bite of dessert {or let's be honest, giving it to me!}
  • serving them when they are sick
  • looking the other way at annoyances 
  • giving them space to grow and change
  • STAYING for better and for worse
It’s a hundred things - big and small - that add up to a lifetime of “I love yous”. It’s the commitment, no matter what. It’s sharing dreams and disappointments. It’s disagreeing and agreeing that it’s okay to have differences. It’s loving the other without trying to change them. It’s hard and it’s sometimes easy. It’s awesome and sometimes messy. It’s a choice and it’s worth choosing. 

I know what love does because I have the honor of being married to a man who lives it out.
Whether it's in the small or the big, he shows up and he loves me. Even when I'm unlovely, unorganized, unkind, or unfair. He's seen me at my best and at my worst, but his commitment is unconditional. He held my hair when I got sick and held our babies right after I gave birth. He dances with me and dates me. He loves me when I'm fancy and fixed up or without a shower for a week in a foreign land. He stands by me every Sunday at church and prays next to me each night. He laughs with me and cries with me. He takes my dreams seriously and my mistakes lightly.
My man, my hero.
That is what love does. And I want to love like this daily. I want to take advantage of cute holidays and be cheesy, romantic and lovey. I want to keep holding hands, dancing in the kitchen and embarrassing our kids with PDA. :) And I wanna hang out with you for my whole life! {He said this to me 17ish years ago...BEFORE T. Swift put it in song!}

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
-Emily Bronte

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Same Same, Different

The dust gathered around us like a cloud and tears glistened in my daughter's eyes. This was our last day in a poor fishing village, wrapping up our ten-day mission trip to Cambodia. We'd been warned about taking a ten year old on a trip like this - out of the country, out of her comfort zone. Questions about how she'd handle the long flight, the food, the new culture, the "squatty potty", but we felt a certain peace that we were doing the right thing. And on this last day in the village we'd  all  fallen in love with, I'd never been more sure of our decision to take her - honestly, even I was shocked by how exceptionally well she did. The language was a definite obstacle for the adults to overcome, but within minutes Madi was laughing and playing with children she'd never met and could not say one word to. Within the first day she had a best friend for the week and her ability to play with and enjoy the children only grew with time. Just a few ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Anyone who knows me well, knows December is my favorite month of the year. I am a genuine Christmas fanatic, one of those gals who gets swept away in the nostalgia of all things Christmas: carols, cards, family gatherings, Advent activities, baking, warm drinks on cold nights, fireside chats...you name it, if it’s Christmasy, I probably love it! However, there have been years past when I got too swept away, packing too much into 25 days, stealing the joy of the season, and replacing it with stress. When January 1 came, I was worn out and weary, rather than recharged and full. After experiencing a couple of hectic holidays, I realized a few ways I went wrong. Maybe you’ve been there, too, so I'll share what I've learned. Proper perspective is crucial.  In an over-spending, over-calendared culture, keeping things simple definitely goes against the grain, and treasuring Christ in Christmas is a challenge. However, Christ is Christmas, and that first Christmas was pretty simp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flipping Out

Let’s just be real here. Parenting with the first child is totally a learn-as-we-go-along experience. My husband and I have laughed many times about our many trial and error moments in parenting! Sometimes things accidentally work out great and other times, even with planning and calculation our best ideas are a giant flop. Don’t worry, we’ve apologized to our oldest child. :) Against that backdrop, we entered into the era of cell phones.  Our then eleven year old daughter was babysitting a lot and many families no longer have a landline, making a cell phone a must. The whole cell phone conversation caught us by surprise and happened earlier than we originally imagined it would. (We seriously thought she would enter the cell phone phase when she got a car.) As we began to look for the best deals on phones, we found several used iPhones at a very low cost. My husband and I are both iPhone users, and know how much we love our phones, so we chose a used iPhone that cost a v...
Post a Comment
Read more