The Valentines Post I Wasn’t Going to Write

I snapped a couple low-quality phone photos last night during our home-cooked yummy Italian dinner (who says Prego spaghetti sauce isn’t authentic Italian?  works for us!)  No elaborate centerpiece on the table.  Paper napkins with hearts printed on them….not even cloth ones.  No aged wine at our family celebration, but rather soda and paper straws.  No heart-shaped ice cubes and we can’t even find candy conversation hearts here.  Its a simple Valentines day in our house this year!  And, there was more blue being worn at our dinner table than pink (gasp!!)

“What are the pictures for“, Abi asked, “are you going to write a blog post“.

“Nah,” I replied, “just taking a few to send to Grandmoni“.

I saw her disappointment and she offhandedly said, “aww….you should post them.  Its Valentines Day mom!”

Then this Valentine card from Britain that reminded me of exactly why I keep this blog. …..

This was the reminder I needed.  My goal this year is to post more frequent, unpolished posts with images from my sub-par camera-phone instead of spoiling the authenticity of the moment pausing everyone till I can get my settings right on my Nikon.  I may have nothing eloquent to say or fancy Pinterest projects, but I want my kids to have our family journal to look back on some days accurately documenting the awkward stages, the loose teeth, the soccer games that maybe weren’t a win, and the messes behind the memories……the insignificant moments as well as the unforgettable ones.

So without further adieu…..here’s our little Valentine celebrations….unedited 🙂

Arranging flowers daddy got for all his girls

Cookie workshop

 C and I got to steal away Thursday night for an early Valentines dinner out.  Best part about celebrating early….no overcrowded restaurants or overpriced set-menus….and when they heard we were celebrating Valentines Day early, we still got the royal treatment.  Complimentary champagne, roses and chocolate ganache cake!!  LOVE time away with this guy!!

Gigi’s little heart-throb Jacob brought Gigi a “Jacob Bear” that she now sleeps with!!

My 6 loves!!

Couldn’t love anything more!!

And here is the MOST special thing about our Valentines Day….
After dinner as we all lounged in a chocolate coma on the couch, opening Valentine cards together, sweet Izzy leaned over to me and asked “Mommy, is today a good day to invite Jesus into my heart?”
Oh my precious girl….the day we have prayed for since before you were born…that you would come to know and love Christ as your Savior and Lord!!
We talked about what that means.  She expressed understanding that we are all sinners and have broken relationship with a holy and perfect God.  Because of sin, God sent his son Jesus to pay the price for sin through his death, and offer us reconciliation to the Father.  Izzy told us she wanted to give her life to Christ and have relationship with Him.  We talked about the security and hope that belongs to all who are in Gods family and our promise of heaven and eternity with Him.  C lead her in prayer and she gave her heart to God.  Her sweet siblings prayed over her and we celebrated an unforgettable Valentines Day!!

Yes indeed baby!!  Its a perfect day for that!!  What a wonderful thing to celebrate your heart, forever sealed in Christ on Valentines Day!!

To the Lonely (Married) Heart on Valentines Day

Embarking on this love story 15 years ago, I found myself falling fast for a guy who singled me out at college and quickly captivated my heart.
He was my first love.
I was mature enough to know I was looking through rose colored glasses, but young enough that I was trusting and not jaded or skeptical about love. When I gave him my heart, I gave him all of my heart….come what may!

And come it did.

A tidal wave of reality hit us only weeks after marriage with the discovery that a life would be born of our love.  A month after marriage, we watched the twin towers collapse and questioned this world we were bringing our baby into.  A short time later we held hands in a hospital room in utter disbelief at the news that there was not one, but two little lives we would have the responsibility of.  Meanwhile, preliminary plans were underway for our departure to the mission field in Ukraine.

I felt like the oldest 21-year-old in the world.

This ushered us into the hardest season of our marriage.  I felt abandoned relocating to a foreign country and then left on my own often when my husband traveled.  I was a very young mom, lonely and living away from the support of friends and family.  Between pregnancies and breastfeeding my 6 babies, there were very few months in our first 10 years of marriage that we didn’t have hormones working against harmony in our home.  His perfectionist personality intensified my insecurities and my oversensitivity did not breed well with his criticism.  There were tears, bitter tears at times, that seemed unredeemable.  We hadn’t learned fighting-fair and I could harbor bitterness for a long time!

I know we loved each other.  We were grounded in our commitment.  But some days felt like that only, commitment.  There were of course good seasons and we have loving memories of the kids being young, but many days were less than picture-perfect.  Everyone who has been married for any length of time knows what survival mode looks like.  We were just trying to manage life and support our family and fulfill our calling.  And while we always worked to make our marriage a priority, honestly, the foundation we had in Christ was somedays the only hope we had of things getting better and moving beyond fighting for our marriage to being fulfilled in our marriage.

I look around me today at so many marriages that I see in the same boat we were in.  An inability to imagine that you can move past the seemingly insurmountable obstacles of survival and actually find yourself in a thriving relationship.  That’s a weapon the enemy has refined.  If he can convince us that things will never change, then we will drown in doubt rather then be sustained through hard times with hope!  I absolutely choked on that lie for years.  The thought of my marriage always being what it was in its infantile stage took the breath and life out of me!

In some marriages, there has been so much damage done by unmeasured words, by unfaithfulness, by laziness, by misplaced priorities and by the erosion of indifference, that it feels like an impasse.  And this is where naturally, the conclusion is often to end it.  To divorce.  The primal instinct is to protect ourselves.  We believe things will never get better and we’re so crushed by the weight of circumstances and feel tethered to a person who is bringing us down, so we cut ties and run.  We use reasoning like “bettering ourselves”.  This belief that the person we’re married to is bringing out the worst in us and being without them frees us to be ourselves, is tainted. Marriage isn’t meant to simply make us “better” versions of ourselves. Marriage is meant to change and refine us. Refinement comes through fire!! That kind of heat hurts!! When a marriages main objective is holiness rather than happiness, then and only then, can try joy begin to take root and flourish into life from our offering of ourselves for God to work in and through!

Today he took me to breakfast. Sometimes growth takes place so gently and gradually over time that you don’t see it until you pause long enough to look back at how things used to be. How did we get to this place where there are no more walls. There is safety in vulnerability between each other. This morning I sat looking across the table at a very different man than the guy who ask me out on my first date, Valentines day 1999 and it almost reduced me to tears.  Im SO grateful! He has softened. I have grown. He has learned to love me well and intentionally takes an interest in the things that interest me. Ive realized all I have to respect in him as a man whose heart is first and foremost seeking the Lord and who intentionally leads his family spiritually. We’ve changed. Our kids are jealous of the priority of time we give to each other. There is no doubt in their mind that we are each others best friend! They’ve remarked on the difference they see of that in their peers at school who come from homes where marriage is solely an institution. But, I hope they remember too, the rough years that brought us to this place, because someday they too will have that path to walk.

I absolutely marvel at what God has done in our life together. The days have been long and grueling, monotonous, emotional, chaotic, messy and hard work. The days have aged us both. With stretch marks and greying hair comes a history together that we’ve linked arms and survived as one, together. We see in military platoons, refugee groups and trauma survivors…..a link is established between people who weather difficult circumstances together. The days have been hard work physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally.
But….the years have been kind!

Ive experienced unconditional love through this man who has stood by my through some difficult years. Who has sought to know me, to really understand me in spite of my complicated emotions and inability to communicate well. Neither of us have been “easy” people to love at times. It has required humility both to give, and to receive love from the other. Marriage strips you bare. Pretense dissolves. And with that dangerous vulnerability comes a capacity to experience love in a way obscure to us when clothed with the facade of feigning who we want to be.

The greatest compliment came this week from our sweet Filipino house-helper who said “Ma’am, you and Sir are so in love, you like boyfriend and girlfriend”. If anyone has seen our marriage up close and personal, its her. She gets the daily grind responses and unfiltered reactions. She’s seen us fight. And she sees the love notes scribbled on the mirror in lipstick. To that I can only respond, God has done this!! This love has not always been so. This is a redeemed love. A love that’s had a lot of crap filtered out. A love that has been bombarded by circumstances and sinfulness that has sought to destroy it. This is a love that has relied on grace to nurture it and forgiveness to fuel it. Our communication, our love life, our compatibility, our unity, our parenting and our friendship has grown exponentially I believe because of, (not in spite of) the hard years we’ve weathered together! Im not naive in believing there wont be other hard seasons, but here I raise my ebenezer and look toward the future with the same hope.… “Thus far the Lord has helped us”
(1 Samuel 7:12)

Its cliche to say “I love him more today than the day I married him”, because, I loved him with every fiber of my being when we said our vows. I didnt love him any less that day than I do today, but that love was an untested, unproven love. It was immature. It was only a shadow of the real deal. Love is tested and tried through circumstances that bring out the worst and most unlovely and still, integrity and faithfulness triumph. Time, hurt, healing, grace and a history together has brought about the kind of love that brings deepest fulfillment and intimacy. By withstanding the test of time in marriage, love is something that is incubated through circumstances that give opportunity to display the evidences of the fruit of the Spirit and embrace the example of love talked about in 1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5:22.
Those opportunities don’t come in the euphoric stages of a courtship because we see the other as flawless. They come when the facades fall and you acknowledge the challenge it will be to love someone who is imperfect and selfish.
“Love does not insist on its own way”….laying down your life and rights for the other is HARD.
“Love always hopes”….forgiving the other and moving on without holding the past over the other is not our natural inclination.
“Love is not easily angered”……there’s no clause of exception for if your spouse has done the same thing that irritates you repeatedly!
“Love is patent”…..sometimes this means seasons, years, decades of hardship or hard work before you see growth, compatibility or romance reborn, but God is FAITHFUL!! And as we honor Him by fulfilling our vows and taking our disappointment to Him, He can breathe new life!!

To the lonely (married) heart on Valentines day….to the young bride struggling with “what have I gotten myself into”….or the mom in the trenches feeling she’s doing it all on her own…..or the woman who is tired and considering her options….hear me when I say, it gets better. Dont give up. Stick it out. God’s going to do something in you through a marriage that’s less than fulfilling. Something He couldn’t do if you were comfortably in a relationship relying on your husband instead of relying on Christ!

He has you in a classroom that may be even more work than quantum physics, more unnerving than organic chemistry or more monotonous than advanced math, but it is only that, a classroom, a stage, a season. Learn lessons. Learn them well. Embrace all God wants to work in your life through the needs that feel so unmet and the lonely empty hours you need Him to fill. Marriage was His idea and He knows the growth that needs to take place in both your life and your husbands life. But He will not leave you there and you are not without hope. He promises to be faithful to complete the work He has begun. And in time, in His time, you will be able to look back with joy and hope and declare, the Lord has done this!!

Pick Up Where You Left Off

You know those friends that you can just pick up where you left off from the time you saw each other last 7 years ago with a few less kids and maybe a few less wrinkles?

Man we love these people!!

Kelly and Tyler were some of our dearest friends when we lived in Ukraine and my friendship with Kelly was what kept me sane (or something like it) during those brutal winters.  We shared life….love of family….passion for Jesus….challenges of trailing spouse-hood….southern belle-ness….and grace-dependant mothering as we navigated early years as missionary wives together.  Our girls took a little ballet class together.  We shared “survival” comfort food recipes.  We shared holidays together between our young families in our tiny sky rise apartment buildings.  So far from extended family, our kids had “surrogate cousins” in each other and I felt I had a sister in Kelly.

Kelly and Tyler were the “first responders”  7 years ago at this time.  They rallied to literally pack up our life in Ukraine for us when we found ourself in a crisis that prevented us from returning to the field.  Kelly was my “eyes” on the ground in helping C sift through our earthly possessions and pack up memories and essentials that would be shipped back stateside.

7 years later, our paths crossed again when the Sanderfords were coming to Thailand for a conference.  We have been plotting and planning for months and anticipating some extra time on each end for our families to overlap.  It was short and sweet and crazy and chaotic and SUCH a blessing!  Hearing the blood-curdling screams of 10 kids playing sardines in the pitch black of our apartment still rings in my ears!  The kids got along as splendidly as their parents do.  So fun!   Thankful for deep, transparent, encouraging friendships that stand the test of time and survive the transiency of ever changing circumstances.

What do you do when your Ukrainian friends come to escape the dead of winter in the tropics?….take them ice skating of course!

Make your own pizza night

long tail boat ride….more fun than Disney world!

’bout maxed out the living room 🙂

Picnic in the park is no small thing with our combined gangs!