A Valentine's Day Reality

"...let's get real, authentic love can't be packaged and sold. We want to see hot actors make out with No Strings Attached. No one wants to watch Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman in An Argument About Running Errands.

The stuff that comes after, the real thing, the day-in-day-out decision to be there and commit to the dance, well, that's too complicated to sell. Real love is when your lonely life gets all tangled up with somebody else's, when I blurs into we and two souls attempt to write a love story with no specific plot line.

It is a reality show without all the editing. Raw. Emotionally charged at times. But to the outside world, a little boring.

I knew I loved my husband when I begrudgingly cleaned the moldy goo out of his toothbrush cup. I knew he loved me too- When he stood by me without trying to rescue me.

Yes, real love is getting a dog. It is a dozen forgotten kisses goodbye and hello. The eye rolling. The hand holding. The love taps. Car trips and comfortable silences. Sharing a box of fried chicken on the couch. The moments when you are apart and it feels like something is missing. The moments when you try to find the you in the we.

Real love is in the details. The hitting of an alarm clock. The washing of a dish. Those rare conversations when the other person says all the right things. And the days when you wish he would just shut up. It's trying to figure out what to eat for dinner. Spending too much money and feeling guilty. Wishing you'd done this or that. Knowing there's so much to say but feeling too tired to actually say it. It's saying it and falling deeper.

It's recognizing that you are not perfect. Love is not perfect. And the person who gave you his heart is going to crack yours every now and then.

But there's something about my husband's smile. There's something about the way he handles a situation, and how he just stands there across the room, looking that way he did the day when we first met.

I know I was right to let him stumble off the pedestal I built for him and try for something real.

We have passion. We have laughter. We don't really need Valentine's Day.

So what if Cupid makes a buck off selling a fairy tale and if the movie studios play off our daydreams? 

There's nothing wrong with romanticism, as long as you realize real love stories don't end at the beginning. Real love stories keep going on."

(excerpt from St. Petersburg Times, written by Sarah Whitman)

and it's SO true.

love is found in the little things. the imperfections of life. 

love is NOT perfect and that is what makes it beautiful.

i can appreciate this as an artist. realizing that sometimes the greatest masterpieces are made out of a single mistake morphed into the one defining, unique attribute of a great piece.

my husband and i really laugh at Valentine's Day. we really always have because honestly, waking up by each other's side every day is what makes this life special. (not that it's always easy to climb into the same bed at the end of each day! ha.) not just a single day out of the year when sentiments are exchanged.

i have found that marriage is simply a journey to our better selves.

just another avenue God uses to show us how to love like He has always poured out His love to us.

and especially THIS year i love my husband SO much more than i ever have.

not because the past 12 months have been AMAZING but rather 

because they have been DIFFICULT.

"Put me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it; If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, It would be utterly despised."

(Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

and, yes, those difficulties are what makes one comprehend the depth of God's love and they are what makes one truly understand how that same kind of love ought to be present in personal life.

and when a love so great is offered time and again and again it really does put life in perspective and makes evident that love truly is the only thing that matters in this life. TRUE LOVE. the kind that doesn't give up, that offers forgiveness when it isn't even desired, the kind that does not 

judge.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

(I Corinthians 13:1-8)

Love Is EVERYTHING.

 love for God, love for others, love for self.

Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

 (Matthew 22:36-39)

and this GREAT love is offered to each and every person EVERY day

in ALL perfection

for those who wish to accept it...