Oh, sometimes it just sweeps over me so violently--how I love you, my man, more than life itself. Our life together is all I know now, all I can really feel in the marrow of me. The memories of these years--the struggling, the bonding, the falling apart and coming back together, all the nights and days knowing your powerful love--in the sunshine on our faces as we work and play and in the night as we love with the moon glowing upon us--it's all I really know deep in my soul.
You have taken me on such a wild, breathtaking love journey. I go on and on about intimacy and weigh down the air with words, but you have taught me the hard work of love every. single. day.
Every time you wash the dishes, try to help me get on track with a schedule, when you jump in without saying a word to help make up for my inadequacies--you teach.
How you are quiet in faithful trust, how you hold your tongue when I'm angry and I say too much--and you just stand there, looking at me, eyes an anchor when I look into them and me drowning in this sea of emotion--you let the grace just pour over us in waves.
When you patiently, quietly show the girls the way to do something right and responsible, and you laugh softly at their mistakes and you don't harshly correct--you are love in motion. And I want to be this--this love in motion I see in you. That I get to be a recipiant-- I am one blessed woman.
And honestly? I just don't know why you keep putting up with me. I have a hard time staying within the grocery budget, I'm not a great housekeeper--I leave dishes piled high until after the kids and I have had fun outdoors, and I fail at keeping time--can never help us arrive anywhere punctually.
Grace is this thing that I'm always hoping for, and always surprised to receive.
And for all the times that I've held you to your debts, and forgot to forgive, I pray that grace comes on the wings of a dove, carrying the gospel message. And for all the baggage that may be stacked high between us, I pray that His justification and righteousness would come on the backs of wild stallions, their hooves pounding in the Christ-blood, and rescue us from our sin-wreckage.
Because I am just this wife that fails over and over again. I really cannot be the woman that you need, and then you bend over my bedside in still-dark morning and as I take in the smell of your cologne and sweet breath, feel the hot against my neck, you whisper into my ear affirming words, words of love and devotion. You always do this when we've had a hard night and disagreed.
You always come on powerful wings of grace and anchor me back to Love.
Gratitude:
3 gifts from my Heavenly Father...
#815 grace, grace, grace...How He loves, in spite of me
#816 how He picks me up and gently rocks me, soothes me, lets me know its going to be alright and hides me in the shadow of His wing--Psalm 17:8 "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings."
#817 how He leads me so faithfully always in the right direction, my steps sure
#818 how Eddie and I hold hands as a team, and we require obedience and responsibility from the children
#819 how Eddie leads us all in godliness and keeps us all on course with work ethic--yielding all to please our Father
#820 his phrase--"You have to work hard if you want to play hard"
#821 how we all know there is reward at the end of our work
#822 how Lorna says to me in the middle of couch being scrubbed down, "Mama, I feel good about the house being clean" and the pink glow on her pretty face.
3 difficult gifts...
#823 hormones taking over my body, I've yelled, and Lorna hugs me and tells me she forgives me.
#824 Husband and I, neither of us able to sleep, staying up all night with little one while she is in a night terror--all of our efforts unable to cure her inconsolable crying
#825 me and the girls missing the free theatre play because baby girl is throwing up--thankful little one is ok
#826 getting up earlier with purpose
#827 watering flowers in the hot, early morning sun
#828 peeking through the crack to watch them play, lost in child wonder
3 gifts I became today in serving...
#829 chauffeur
#830 neighborhood mom--foregoing my run for a playdate at our house--game of Bocee in the backyard and turkey and tofu lasagna for supper
#831 friend--dancing silly and making my daughter and her friend laugh
#832 folding clothes with my girls
#833 birds singing as we do schoolwork outside
#834 finding a bird's nest in our little backyard tree
#835 teaching my little one to write her numbers
#836 her sweet dimpled grin, her and I both so proud when she writes her name
#837 lying in the hammock, all of us tangled up, reading Little House On the Prairie
a gift bent, beautiful, loved...
#838 bright yellow sunflowers brought to me by our neighbor, starting to wilt
#839 a tray brought to me by eldest daughter with fried eggs as eyes, toast with jam for a mouth, and bits of bacon for eyebrows and mustache --just because she knows her Mama has a hard time getting up in the morning and she enjoys serving
#840 Lilly's soft blue hippo in her arms in our bed, her limbs splayed out, the hippo's limbs hanging limply for the wear
#841 the girls and I climbing a tree to see newborn baby Brown Thrashers
#842 how devotedly and tirelessly the mama Brown Thrasher watches over and incubates her nest
#843 how in one fell swoop, the father appears from nowhere, sqwaking and thrashing his wings, threatening our young cat who has climbed right up to the nest
#844 his text to me sent out of the blue, sweet words of affirmation for no reason...
**Friends, your comments mean so much to me--they soul-drench me in grace and minister to me. And your prayers mean even more. I am not able to answer each comment--I am probably helping construct a science project, cleaning up potty-training baby girl's messes, reading a good book with my kids in the hammock, playing tag, having a glass of wine with Husband, or just trying to breathe, friend! I hope you understand? Thank you in advance for grace. I love this community of grace-filled people! Head here to get to know me better and to read why during this season of life, I am just quietly writing, and not visiting via social media as much....
** Thank you for so, so much grace, friends. My heart cannot express in mere words, my thankfulness. I love all of you.
