Forever Beloved

I am no stranger to storybook romance.  Marrying at twenty to the sweetest man, I am blessed to be familiar with love – love as a falling and a pursuit and a passion.  We were introduced for the first time on a cold February evening, bundled up as we stood outside while snow gently fell around us.  We stood there with our cherry-red noses, enamored with each other.

I am also no stranger to going against the grain and doing life differently than others.  One month later we were engaged.  We were married three months after that, with vows breathed in the little country church I was born into.

We both entered marriage in love with being in love.  I adored the romance, comfort and support a spouse offered.  I loved waking up beside him each morning and laying down beside him each night.  I loved that he was my best friend and knew me better than anyone.  We had our own unwritten language and could share a look or a word that no one else would understand but WE knew what it meant.  I loved how he could make me laugh more than anyone else.

Falling in love is the most blissful feeling.  With each new discovery in your relationship, you feel yourself falling more and more in love.  You just know, in your heart of hearts, that you’ve found the right person to spend the rest of your life with.  Your days are filled with dreams of getting married, writing their last name after your first name, having a family and sitting on the porch swing holding hands while watching your grandkids play in the yard.  You are certain these feelings will last forever.  But they didn’t.

Eventually the laundry piles up, the kids are hanging on your leg screaming, you’re both sleep deprived from the new baby, the house looks like a tornado went through and the bills are more than your income.  In that moment you feel your happily ever after wearing off.

You begin to wonder if you even married the right person.   It seems everything he does gets on your nerves, from the way he leaves his socks on the stairs to the way he chews his food.  The person you are married to isn’t the same person you fell in love with.  You begin to doubt your choice.  You look at other couples around you, so happily in love, and you wonder why you don’t have that.  You feel life isn’t fair, at least yours isn’t.  Before long, you can feel your heart slowly drifting away from his.

Throughout the years, I’ve collected every card and love letter my husband has written me.  I have them all safely tucked away but on occasion will pull an old one out and pour over the words.  It’s in that moment, between the lines, I can see this love of ours has, without a doubt, changed over time.

It isn’t because it’s any less.  It isn’t because we’re walking through a valley.  It isn’t because the laundry is piled sky high and the bills are mounting.  It is something different.

Love is more of a choice than a feeling.

Throughout the past twenty-one years we’ve made a conscious choice to daily say that we still do, even now.  Especially now.

He has continued to choose me, even on days I wear sweat pants and a messy bun.  He has continued to choose me, throughout every sickness and surgery.  He has continued to choose me, even when I’m undeserving.

And I’ve chosen him.

Love is strung together choices.  The feelings, undoubtedly, will rise and fall.  Being in love with love will fade as the toughness of life becomes a reality.  As life goes on we all change, we grow, we mature, and life changes us.  But marriage is not meant to be a lifetime commitment to fairy tale love alone.  Marriage is designed to be a repetitive I do, a daily commitment of choosing us over me.  You choose to love who they are at each point in life, not only who they used to be.

Marriage was designed specifically by God to mirror the relationship between Christ and His church.  In marriage, we are acting out a living parable to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way.

Over the years God has softened and shaped my heart.  He has shown me that I need to love my husband without unreal, fairy tale expectations.  He has shown me that marriage means intentionally looking for love.  It’s in those moments I am flooded with displays of love right in front of me.  Love is the endless miles he’s driven me to doctor appointments.  Love is the hug, kiss and butt slap I get when he walks in the door.  Love is the laundry he does.  Love is his understanding that somehow 8 backyard chickens suddenly became 50.  Love is his support of all my crazy Pinterest ideas.  It’s in these ways and thousands of others that he shows me, he tells me, he loves me.

I am so thankful our love story has so many chapters left to be written in it.  As your love story is written by the ultimate Author of love, you might just be surprised at the romance you find.  And just how much your husband does, in fact, resemble prince charming.  No matter what the situation, or what mess it may hold, he’s still my hero and I’m still his girl.

This week many Christians were shocked at a blog post by Lysa TerKeurst.  Not only shocked, but manys hearts broke for her.  I follow Lysa on Facebook and saw her post there.  I couldn’t help but go to the comments, praying they would be supportive.  And in that comment section, my heart grew sadder.  So many wives were walking through the same valley of brokenness Lysa is.  My heart broke for their hearts.  I’ve felt the nudge for a few days to write this article and today, I knew it was the right time.

To the wife that just found out about her husbands unfaithfulness:

The silent burden you’re carrying seems too heavy to lift some days.  The hurt, the extreme hurt, seems to reach directly down to your bones.  The knife stabbing pains of a broken heart.  There are days where the pain literally takes away your ability to breathe.

Things that once looked so familiar to you now look like things you don’t even recognize.  The coffee pot he made coffee in each morning while he was lying to you.  The couch you snuggled on while watching tv while he was lying to you.  The stairs you both walked up to your bedroom while he was lying to you.  The socks he put on each morning while he was lying to you.  Literally every single item in your house is filled with lies.  And as you glance around each day, that is what you see.

Some might tell you to take comfort in knowing you aren’t suffering alone, that there are so many other women across the world {including Lysa TerKeurst} walking this same path.  You find no comfort in that.  None.  Truth is the valley you are walking through is dark, cold, lonely and so very scary.  Along the path is hurt, anger and bitterness.

Let me speak directly to your heart sweet girl.  God wants to hold your broken heart in His hands.  That is the only way.  Listen to my words and let me say it again…that is the ONLY way.  He can heal your broken heart and He will heal it.  But first, you must give Him all the pieces.  The challenge is first finding all of the pieces.  Like shards of broken glass, the pieces weave themselves so very deep into our hearts.  And Satan is right there, breaking the pieces smaller and hiding them better.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds
Psalm 147:3

The pain touches a deep, vulnerable place often known only to God.  When hurting is the only thing you can feel, it is such a lonely place to be.  So many times when we are going through pain, we are told to get over it, move on and let it go.  They don’t understand how slow this hurt heals.  The world offers so many ways to numb the pain, but they are only temporary fixes.  Please oh please don’t fall for that trap.  If we turn to them, then we aren’t allowing God to heal our hurt.  Allowing Him to search and heal our hearts is the only true way to have them healed.  Only He knows the deepness and complexity of our pain.

Psalm 56:8 says You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.  Our tears are not in vain.  God knows each of His children intimately, and every tear we shed has meaning to Him.  He remembers our sorrow.  And in the end, He will share His joy with us.  Revelation 21:4 says He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.  Sweet girl, find comfort in that.  Not only does he know your sorrow, but He will wipe every tear from our eyes.  Don’t suffer through your grief alone.  Don’t be unwilling to be vulnerable with God.  And please, even though you are angry, don’t blame God.  Give Him your heart, hand it over to Him to search and find all those little pieces of hurt and allow His hands to heal it as only He can.

Search me O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way
Psalm 139:23-24

When it feels like all hope is lost, hand that relationship over to God.  It’s so easy to make rash decisions while our heart is broken.  Many days, divorce sounds like the best and sometimes easiest option.  Hand it over to Him, pray about it and search out biblical council.  And maybe that will be the end result for your relationship.  If it is, cling to God like never before and allow Him to carry you through it.  I pray if this is the end result that you will be surrounded with grace and an enormous amount of love and support.

But maybe God has a beautiful reconciliation full of grace planned for you.  Often times the relationship, once it has endured the storm, will come out of it stronger and new.  Through all the conversations, all the deepness, you now know each other differently.  This is the blessing of true healing from the hands of God.  At times, taking it day by day seems like such a big task.  Just take it minute by minute, and allow His grace to carry you through each one.

I know even reading this post made your heart ache and the tears flow.  I wish so very much I could reach through this screen and give you a big hug and just cry with you.  One day the hurt will be a little less, I promise.  And that will feel like the first “good day” you’ve ever had.  And each week, there will be more glimpses of sunshine.  Eventually your good days will run together, and smiles and laughter will abound.  Trust me, you will get there if you allow God to heal your heart.  He brings beauty from the ashes.

You will move on past this.  You will hold your head high, knowing the storm may have knocked you down but it didn’t win.