How to Survive a Marriage

It's strange to think that I am writing to TWO children now.  Some letters will be to you individually, and some will be to you both.  And I guess when it comes the day to print these into books, I'll sort it all out then.

Your Daddy and I are approaching our sixth wedding anniversary in just two weeks.

And since I plan on giving you these letters when you are older and considering relationships and marriage, it's time for some honesty.

There were several times I didn't think we were going to make it here.  Our marriage has had quite its share of ups and downs.  I know - people say every marriage has ups and downs, and that's very true.  And while I won't go into specifics of what our marriage has been through, I can tell you that we've each made some mistakes that cost us a lot of wasted time and love on being angry and lonely.

We've learned some very, very hard lessons in the six years that we have been married and the eight years that we have been together.

One of those lessons is that marriage is never, ever 50/50.  Let me tell you why that ratio is wrong - You should never only give half of yourself to your spouse.  You should always give 100%.  There will be times that it will be 60/40, or 80/20, or even 95/5, and that's ok.  A partnership only works when one partner is able to pick up where their partner is lacking.  Trying to make things equal is draining and hard and you will always be disappointed. 

And if you focus on giving 100% of yourself at all times, the reciprocal is usually the same.

Another lesson is learning when to talk and when to shut up.  In our case, I am usually the one needing to shut up, and Your Daddy is the one who needs to talk.  There's no fault in this - it's just how we operate as individual people.  

I'm a talker - I express my feelings, all of them, all the time.  I complain, I praise, I yell, I scream, I tell you exactly what I think before I've even processed it.  Your Daddy is a thinker - every word that comes out of his mouth has been carefully thought about and mulled over, so much so that he loses himself in his thoughts during conversation and tells me things that have nothing to do with what we're talking about (that part is pretty cute).

But in a marriage, the things I blurt out can be quite hurtful, and the things he doesn't say can be hurtful too, especially because he won't say certain things because he is afraid of hurting me.  We've had to seek some help on our communication and I can tell you that we are so much better about it.  Fights are MUCH shorter and are more like conversations than screaming battles.

But perhaps the a-number-one most important lesson we have learned is that in a Christian marriage, we cannot love each other by ourselves.  The only way to truly love one another is THROUGH Christ - the ultimate example of love.

For instance, in the last epic we may not make it fight, I was very, very, very angry.  I was so hurt that I legitimately ached in my body.  I spent a lot of time on my knees, crying out for relief from the bitterness and anger.  I couldn't even bear to look at this man that I knew to be my husband, and yet, I was supposed to love him?

Yes.  I was supposed to love him.

In a day and age where it seems so easy to just give up, sign the papers, and start over, I was supposed to defy what has become a social norm and love my husband through good AND bad?

Yes.

How can I profess a love and forgiveness that comes from Christ, who loves me when I am most unlovable, most unclean, most undesirable?  How can I tell others how Christ's love saved me, if I wasn't willing to love my husband, my partner, and ultimately my brother in Christ through the pain and hurt?  How am I supposed to feel free in forgiveness from my own sins, when I was so reluctant to give that same forgiveness to my husband?

So I made my decision right then.  I am supposed to love my husband for the rest of our lives.  Not because he's cute, or makes good cheeseburgers, or treats me in any certain way that makes him "worthy" of my love.  But because I am commanded to love because I was loved when I was least deserving.

God gives us marriage as a gift and a treasure.  We are meant to be blessed with partnership, encouragement, forgiveness, faithfulness, and just plain ole fun.  

I love the man I married.  He knows me better than I know myself - he can sense an emotional meltdown coming from a mile away and jumps in to see what he can do to overcome it.  He lets me eat the last of the chips and he tells me I'm beautiful, even when I know I'm not looking my best.  He gives the best hugs in the whole world.  He protects our little family, and serves us well with his kind heart.  He has given me two beautiful children, and he is an amazing and devoted father.  Plus, he is ridiculously cute and he really does make good cheeseburgers.  

Our love is comfortable.  I love coming home to his warm embrace and knowing exactly what we will do all evening, which is typically veg out in front of our favorite shows on tv.  I love when he comes home in the mornings and rolls me over for a sweet kiss before he promptly passes out from exhaustion.  I love that I can typically predict what he will be wearing, and that his towel is always going to drive me nuts where he places it.  I love that there is only one way to position our hands that is comfortable when we are walking hand-in-hand, and that our hands naturally fall into it.  I love that I can put my head on his shoulder, and he wraps his big arm around me and it just FITS.  

Without a doubt, we were made for each other.  We bring out the best and the worst in each other.  But we've gotten a lot better at bringing out the best.  Our marriage is stronger than it has ever been because we are communicating and being honest in ways that we never were before.

And sure, it's a lot easier to love him when things are good.  Absolutely it is.  But I'm so much more prepared to love him when things are bad.  Because we are human and inevitably, he will hurt me again.  I will hurt him again.  We will argue and we will fight and we will disagree and we will make poor choices.  We won't always put each other first and we won't always be our best selves.  But we can love each other through it.

I pray for your future spouses every day.  That God already has or will be creating them for you, molding their hearts to be the perfect complement to yours.  That your paths will lead to each other in an uncomplicated, safe, and unmarred journey.  That you will seek Christ's love first before seeking each other, so that when you do find each other, you have a firm foundation and perfect example to follow to know HOW to love each other.  That you will always know love and joy through your spouse, and that pain and anger are limited.  That your marriages will be blessings and not obligations.  That you will always see your spouse how God sees them - worthy of love and forgiveness, even when it seems to be the opposite.

I pray that you will see this love evidence as you watch our relationship while you grow older.  That our marriage is one to be envied and emulated.  That we will teach you how to treat your spouses by our example, and that our example will be a GOOD one.  That we will always be careful of how we speak to each other in our children's presence, and that you will understand the difference in disagreeing in love and arguing in selfishness.  That our joy will overflow from our marriage and into our home so that you can be safe in knowing that you not only have parents who love you, but love each other as well.  

I pray that Your Daddy and I will always remember the covenant that we made to each other six years ago - to be together for the rest of our lives, to respect each other with our hearts and minds, and to be a partnership that builds up and doesn't tear down.  I am supposed to be Your Daddy's #1 encourager and helper, and he is supposed to be my best friend and protector.

And that he will always make me cheeseburgers.

Dear John Paul

Dear John Paul,

I should introduce you to this little blog of mine, since we are quickly approaching your arrival into our world.

So hi.  I'm your mom.

And I still can't believe we're doing this again.

You see, you were sort of a surprise.

Your Daddy and I had kind of decided we weren't going to have any more children.  Your Big Sister was going to be our only child.  We were in a rocky place when we found out about you - finances were extremely tight, our marriage was coming out of one of those valleys, my job was stressful, and Big Sister was entering toddler-hood.

So when I looked at the calendar and realized something was "off" a few days after the New Year, I found a pregnancy test under the guest room sink that I have no idea how old it was.  Your Daddy was still asleep and Big Sister sat on her potty in the bathroom with me while I cried and panicked over the little word on the test - "PREGNANT."

Oh, holy cow.

How were we going to do this?  We're barely making things happen with just ONE baby, let alone two.  I just had knee surgery a few weeks beforehand and had taken strong painkillers - Are you even ok in there?  How is Ben going to handle this news?  What about Brooke Allen?  How is MOM going to react?  What do we do?

And in those few moments of freaking out and talking to my wonderful mom friends in our little Facebook group, I began to realize a few things.

People much poorer than us in much worse situations have babies all the time.  People in worse marriage positions than us have babies all the time.  People who do drugs have babies who are ok.  Babies are never a mistake.  Babies are awesome.  Your Daddy and I are two loving and capable people who can make this happen.  And most importantly...

God never makes mistakes.  We read this over and over in scripture.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. - Jeremiah 1:5

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 

- Matthew 6:26

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. 

- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. 

- Colossians 1:17

So if God never makes mistakes, and you are born with a purpose...

Then why am I so worried?

So I gave up worrying.  

I don't have to worry.  God gave us yet another gift of life as a product of Your Daddy's and my love for each other.  We are going to have a BABY.  Another precious piece of Heaven that we get to care for and love on and raise to be a productive human being who we pray returns the praise to the God who gave you to us.

That old saying, "God never gives us more than we can handle" is totally not true.  He gives us so much more, so that we rely on Him for our needs.  And our needs throughout this pregnancy have been fully met.  We have a home and more than enough food in our fridge, really great insurance, we are working on our financial stability daily, our marriage is more intact than ever, and Big Sister is slowly (ok, not really at all) getting the picture of actually being a Big Sister.

So here we are at 36 weeks pregnant.

At my appointment last Tuesday, you are head down and engaged, and I am dilated 1 cm, which is more than I was dilated with Big Sister at the time of her induction.  And with the way you have been MMA fighting my pelvis and hips for the past 24 hours, I'm going to assume when I go to my appointment on Monday, that we've made some more progression.

Everyone is telling me you will be here by Labor Day weekend, which I am starting to believe myself.  

Which would be pure poetic justice - you see, Labor Day weekend and August 30 is our wedding anniversary.  Six years to be exact.  I was born on my parent's anniversary, and my whole life, I have heard nothing but, "I never got an anniversary after you were born" from Your Gigi.  She is not so secretly hoping you are born on the 30th so that she can rub this in my face even more.

Honestly?  I don't care what day you are born.  I just want to meet you.  There must be something extra special about you for God to give you to us at such a time.  I think you are going to do great things.

It's funny, when I was pregnant with Big Sister, she would go bananas in my belly when music was played.  She loved church music and Tom Petty, specifically.  And now that she is here, she loves dancing and singing so much.  She sings along with the radio and we catch her singing to her babies all the time.  She dances whenever music is on and yells, "DANCE, DADDY!" even in restaurants.  She's even trying to match pitch with me while I sing.

You?  You love preaching.  I can barely sit still during sermons and Sunday School lesson because you are squirming so much.  So will you be a great preacher?  A teacher?  A politician?  Who knows!

All I know is you are special.  You are so loved.  You are going to be something great.  And you will be ours for a little while by the beautiful provision of the Great God we serve.

Son, I love you.  As we count down these last few weeks/days/hours, I sit in prayer and vigilance, waiting for you.  Waiting until I see that beautiful and perfect face of yours that we have only seen through ultrasound.  Waiting until I hear your first breath and first cry.  Waiting to hold you close to my chest and cry for our wonderful little miracle.  Waiting to be YOUR Mommy.

And I still can't believe we're doing this again.  How great is our God?

Big Changes, Little Brother

It's been a very long time since I've written on this blog to you.  I'm sorry about that.  Life has up and run away with us since...well, YOU up and started running.

If there's one word I could use to describe you, it is "spirited."  You are full of spirit.

Just about everything makes you giggle uncontrollably, especially when we tickle you right under your neck.  You run everywhere you go, whether it's down the hall at home or down the aisles at Target away from Mommy and GiGi.  I have to remind you often that we are inside, and screaming is reserved for outside.  You love to play and explore and climb.  You are busy from sun up to sun down, taking care of your babies and Mousey and cooking and reading and watching your favorite shows.  You are friendly and bubbly and talk to just about everyone you come in contact with.  

In fact, you talk all the time.  You talk about what you see, what you're doing, what I'm doing, what Daddy is doing, what you think BanBen might be doing, what's on tv, what's not on tv...You never really STOP talking.  I've even heard you talk in your sleep.

You may not look much like me, but your personality is SO.  ME.

With our personality comes the not-so-fun side of being "spirited."  It also means you are VERY strong-willed.  We've always known this, even from your gender scan when I was 20 weeks pregnant with you - you sat backwards Indian style for over an hour while we poked and prodded you to move to find out who you were.  You continued to show it with your stubbornness to sit up on your own, crawl, and walk, waiting until you were 17 months old to take off.

And then once you did, we can't stop you.  You have very specific opinions about what you like and what you don't like.  You also are on your own time frame.  It's brought us both to tears on multiple occasions, leaving your poor Daddy, "Da-Da" you still call him, to pick up the pieces of us both.  I hope he's prepared to do that for the rest of our combined lives.

But we're working on it.  We've had to come up with a solution to you telling us "no" or not coming to us when we ask.  Unfortunately, that solution is popping you on the leg gently, which really hurts your feelings more than anything.  And we're working on being content in our surroundings.  Just because you are through with your plate and cup doesn't mean you need to push it off the table.  We go through a lot of marshmallows as rewards for things.

Like I said, we're working on it.

But we can't push you very hard.  You have to decide on your own when you are ready for these things.  Potty training has been pushed to the back burner because I know that forcing you to do it will more than likely backfire on us rather than be productive.  You ask to potty occasionally, and sometimes you don't care at all.

We are learning to manipulate our schedules to allow you ample time to "take care of things" before we leave the house - tuck Mousey into bed with a sweet kiss, brush your hair without tears, let you tell us "no" to five different shirts before deciding which one you will wear.  

We're trying to allow you to be YOU, without crushing that "spirit" that I love so much.  That spirit will take you so very far.  

The sweet side of your spirit has made you a favorite among your daycare teachers and friends.  I love hearing how sweet you are at school and seeing you interact with your friends.  They give you big hugs every morning and you play so kindly with them.  Except when Mickey Mouse is involved, and then you had to go sit up front with the Director...

The playful side of your spirit has given you the ability to play independently without Mommy or Daddy right by your side.  You love to play in your "big girl room" and are just fine to play in there for hours with me just checking on you every so often.  You have a huge imagination and I often catch you chatting on your phone and going on trips to see family members within the confines of our home.

 The adventurous side of your spirit lets us drop you off with extended family without fear of separation anxiety.  You spend long weekends with GiGi, BanBen, and BeBe and PawPaw with no issues.  You say, "Bye Mommy!" and that's all!

The smart side of your spirit makes you so inquisitive and has instilled a love for learning.  You ask so many questions and want to know what we are all doing at all times.  You love to watch me put on my make-up and ask what each thing is for, before asking for some of your own.  You love to read books and ask what the pictures are about.  You also love your Bible stories, and learning parts of the stories so that we can quiz you about them.  You know all about Jonah and his whale, Noah and his animals, and Joshua blowing his trumpets, but you get a little confused on whether it was David or Daniel who was in the lions' den.

The tender side of your spirit has feelings that are hurt very easily, even by harmless lady bugs.  I have to give you many hugs and kisses because you bumped your elbow, Goofy fell off his bike, or Charlotte's tail popped you on the leg.  

There are so many other precious parts of you that I could go on and on all day about.  I love every bit of you - even the trying and frustrating bits.  I know that those are actually more few and far between than I realize.

And I guess that's what terrifies me most about this next step in our family life - You are going to be a big sister.

And when I say that, I mean, fairly quickly.  I'm 36 weeks pregnant tomorrow.

When people have asked if you have figured out that things are going to change, I tell them honestly that you have no idea and we are going to rock your world.

Because we are.  I'm not worried about me or Daddy.  I know that you don't split love between two children - instead your love doubles.  I already love your Little Brother in ways I never thought possible, and I've never met him.

It's YOU I worry about, and how these big changes will affect your spirit.  I don't want to lose an ounce of anything I have described about you.  I need that spirit to keep us all going as we transition into a family of four.  I need to know that you're going to be ok.

Your GiGi assures me that you'll be just fine.  But I know how much you love snuggle times in Mommy and Daddy's bed in the morning, spreading Pop Tart crumbs across our sheets while we watch the Today Show.  I know how you love to run down the hall yelling incoherent sounds.  I know how you love to leave your toys all over the floors because we all ignore them until it's time to clean up.  I know how you love spending time with Your Gigi on "Gigi Days."

Every aspect of our lives is going to change with bringing home Little Brother.  You are going to have to share toys and food and Mommy's lap.  You are going to have to be quiet when you don't want to.  And you're going to have to be someone's Big Sister forever.

Heck, you're even going to have to share this blog.

I hope you realize how much of a blessing and a gift a sibling is early on in life.  I didn't realize it until MUCH later.  I am so thankful for my brother and all he provided me with growing up - good and bad.  

I know that you and JP will be big buddies and you will love to have a playmate around.  You two will get in lots of trouble together.  But you will always have another person in the family to rely on.  A special relationship with secrets from Mom and Dad that you will keep for years to come.  You will make sure you are the only one who is allowed to push him around, and threaten to beat up any bullies who mess with him.  You will ignore him in the lunchroom, but be so proud of his accomplishments.  You will complain about attending his sporting events, but be upset when he can't be at yours.

There's nothing like a sibling relationship.  I'm so glad we get the chance to give it to you.

And through all of it, I am going to do my very best to make sure we don't dim the light of your spirit.  To give you all the praise and adoration that we absolutely can so that you know you are special because you are who you are.  JPs spirit is going to be so much different than yours.  Both of you are perfectly made and formed by a God who gives us each different personalities and skills and talents.  You are both unique.

I love who you are now.  I can't wait to see who you are as a Big Sister.  I can't wait to meet your Little Brother.  I can't wait to see what our new family dynamic will be like.  I can't wait to fall in love with Your Daddy all over again.

I love you more than ever, my Sweet, Sweet Girl.