what love is

For years, I waited and wished and hoped for a Valentine. Watching friends receive carnations throughout the day, I hoped for it to happen to me. I even went so far to ask friends of mine to be my valentine - just so I would have something. It always backfired on me. I was always did more and tried more and felt like I wasn't special enough.

When I met and started to fall in love with my husband, I had expectations. The expectations weren't necessarily what I wanted but were more what I felt like should happen. Big, over priced bouquets of flowers. A large stuffed animal for good measure. And an expensive dinner.

It's taken me a few years of expectations to realize that expectations are not what I want or need. I don't want too much money spent on things that don't matter. What I want, and what I have, is a husband who loves and adores me and shows me that love in personal ways.

For the past several years, we've done the same thing for Valentine's Day. Or the weekend that surrounds the holiday. Dinner and a movie. It all started on our first Valentine's Day. I didn't think I would see my now husband that day due to school and work and conflicts. And then I walked out to my car, following a long day of caring for babies, and saw him drive up in his car. There was a homemade card for me, and he told me that he had tickets for us to see Definitely Maybe.

We ordered pizza for dinner and ate at my college apartment before heading to the movie.

Our second Valentine's Day together, we were freshly married and had just returned from our honeymoon where we ate, drank, slept, tanned and explored Costa Rica. We saw another movie and ate dinner while we watched it - one of the perks that Texas has that Oklahoma does not is dinner movie theaters.

We enjoyed dinner and a movie for our third Valentine's Day together, and on our fourth Valentine's Day, we had dinner with friends and then watched a movie later.

This is our fifth Valentine's Day together. I woke up this morning and found a card waiting for me in the bathroom. There won't be dinner out tonight or a movie that we go see this weekend. What there will be is a husband who has served me and loved me and cared for me over the past few weeks. There is a husband who has been patient with me and who has made me laugh.

He's shown me what love really is. And it isn't large bouquets of flowers or large boxes of chocolates. It's not jewelry or diamonds or anything else of the sort. It isn't expensive dinners or desserts. All of those things are fine but they are not what defines love or Valentine's Day.

Love is a husband who wakes up throughout the night to help me get up and off the couch.

Love is a husband who buys me flowers to say get well.

Love is a husband who buys me lots of cold medicine when I'm sick and can't take DayQuil.

Love is a husband who does my laundry because I can't.

Love is a husband who lets me control the remote.

Love is a husband who goes out in the cold to get me Chik-Fil-A for dinner.

Love is a husband who prays with me and for me.

Love is a husband who puts me first when I'm unable to care for myself.

Love is a husband who asks for forgiveness and lovingly forgives.

Love is a husband who isn't perfect but strives to be better.

Love is my husband.

it's getting so much clearer

To One of The Bravest Girls I Know,

How do I start this letter? It's so much easier to write letters to my husband, my family, and our friends. Words are so powerful, but as you well know, you're not very good at believing them when they are directed towards you.

I think that is the first thing to remember. The words you say to others are words that you also need to say to yourself.

It's not that you're more special than another. Or better than anyone else. But you do need to love yourself in order to love others. (I don't say this to be harsh but just to remind you that every person in the world is worthy of love.)

Remember how you felt at church Sunday morning? Truth poured from the pastor's lips and pierced your heart - reminding you (and me) that life is not about the things that so many say it is. Life's about loving others well, building lasting and meaningful relationships with others, and living in such a way that you always point back to the cross.

There are times when do you do this. But as you well know, there are plenty of other times when you don't do this. I think that the reason you (and I) struggle with this is simple: we don't love ourselves enough.

It's a hard thing to balance. How do you love yourself without lifting yourself up above God, above the calling placed on your life? How do you take care of yourself without allowing your life to become solely about you? How do you live your life for others without completely forgetting to take care of yourself as well?

My suggestion is to start with the cross and to remember just how loved you are by a God who willingly went to the cross and died for you. His death was never in vain. Please also remember that. It was done so that you would begin to live life in a way that spoke to others. And that way should also speak to you on a daily basis.

Also remember that God loves you for the person you are. He made you, knitting you together in your mother's womb. The things you don't like about yourself - your amniotic band syndrome for one - are things He created and that set you apart from others. Enjoy those things. Capitalize on those things. Love those things.

While you are remembering the things God loves you for, also remember that everything He has given you is a gift. Nothing belongs to you; it all belongs to Him. I know letting go of control is terrifying, but I truly believe that your life will become more of what it needs to be as you let go or what your expectations are.

God has given you talent, and that talent needs to be used. Don't stop writing - ever. It doesn't matter how many people read or don't read. What matters is that you never give up. When the words won't come, sit at the computer - fingers poised above the keyboard - and wait. The words will always come. And once they do, love them and put them out for the world to read. Yes, you have to be careful with how much you share, but share you must as that is something you were born to do.

You've been through so much in your now twenty-six years of life - sometimes with no one else there to hold your hands and sometimes with a community of people to build you up and wrap their arms around you. And you've always come through.

Life hasn't been what you expected. But that's where all of the beauty comes from as you're living the life God designed for you - not a life that He designed for someone else and then plugged you into when it didn't work out for that someone else. This life is the one you are meant for. Please enjoy it and love it.

And please stop comparing yourself to others. There are so many things you have seen and survived that might have been the end for someone else. But there are also other things that might have been the end for you that others survived.

You are where you are for a very specific reason and purpose. I know you want to understand why and you want to when things are going to "get better," but it is time to let go and to simply live your life and love yourself so that you in turn can love others and show others how to love themselves.

Today is Valentine's Day 2012, and I want you to take a deep breath and let these words sink in. Not necessarily the words I've written to you but the words God has placed in your heart - the words that speak of His truth, His love of you, and His hopes for you. Valentine's Day is about love - not just the romantic kind but all kinds. And today you need to realize how loved you are by God.

Let the breath out, then go look at yourself in the mirror.

You are beautiful. You are wonderfully made. You are a light in a world that is often too dark. You are filled with hope. You are brave. And even though it often seems like things will never improve, they will, and you will survive just as you always have.

Now I want you to take in another deep breath and close your eyes. Think of what you want from this life. Say a prayer that God would continue to guide you. Imagine the faces of the people who you can help, the people you can tell your story too. As you let out this deep breath, open your eyes and start moving.

This is the time for you to live your life out for God and in the process learn how to love yourself the way He first loved you.

Love,
The Girl In The Mirror


(title from "today was a fairytale" by taylor swift)

i'm happy to know you

I worked until 11:00pm on Friday night, and the first thing I noticed when I stepped inside my house was that it was clean.

We're not the tidiest of couples. Add two shedding dogs into the mix plus a wife (me) who is now working 60 hours a week, and being not so tidy quickly turns into overwhelmingly messy. So to come home to a house cleaned by my husband warmed my heart.

My husband knows exactly what I need - even though I don't always know what I need. He's proven that time and time again.

The clean house was just the start to the weekend he planned for Valentine's Day. He wanted to make sure that I didn't have to worry about a single thing this weekend - allowing me time to relax. The clean house also provided us a chance to continue our Valentine's Day tradition of dinner and a movie.

Valentine's Day 2008

It's a little cliché, but that's how we spent our first Valentine's Day as a couple and then a year later our first Valentine's day as a married couple. We almost didn't have a first Valentine's Day date; he convinced me that I wouldn't see him and I was crushed.

But then he surprised me and showed me that he knew me well and would always find a way to make me feel special.

To read more about our first Valentine's Day and the expectations I had (and then learned to put aside), you'll have to visit Jordy Liz Blogs where I am guest posting for the day!

(title from "paperweight" by joshua radin)