Thankfulness 8

I’m thankful for marriage. And not just mine, but the institute of it. And while I try to practice traditional family values, I also love and appreciate all types of marriages. Traditional and nontraditional. I just love the fact that two people come and decide that they will take life’s journey together. And at first you are starry eyed most often young and so in love you can’t see straight. Then life happens and you grow together or apart. And it is sad to see how many do it apart. I am totally guilty here. I was a starry eyed 20 year old and a 21 year old divorcee. No intentions of trying to work it out. We just went our separate ways. I am glad that happened because we weren’t the right people for each other and if we tried to force it I don’t know for sure our future, but I don’t think it would have been so great. And if I stayed I couldn’t have met Andrew and then you see there would be no LilyAnna Blu, Andi Jane and Oliver Isaac Steven Nothdurft.
A decade plus later marriage is so much more than a relationship. And bring children into the mix and here you are in a partnership. You sleep together, parent together, you do your finances together, share a bathroom, closet, and sometimes a vehicle. You live your lives together. There is no you or I, it is us. And so often along that way you forget all about what made you those starry eyed lovers and that’s when so many couples say, I’m not in love with you anymore and leave.
What I love are the couples who stick it through and not only stick it through but see the worst marriage can offer and dust it off and keep on going. And not only keep on going, but do it better. Nothing I love more than a random conversation with an elderly couple who tells me about their marriage together. So often there is humor in their answer of how they worked and so often you still see that sparkle for each other. My parents stuck it though. Andrew’s parents have stuck it through as well as both sets of my grandparents, both my grandma’s passed away with their husbands by their side. Both Andrew’s grandfathers left their wives young widows. Divorce is not prevalent on either side of our families, but sunshine and rainbows aren’t either. I appreciate changes made, love renewed, spirits restored. I believe in forgiveness and understanding. I believe sins are forgiven, but consequences still have to be paid. I believe in a just God who loves marriage and family. In our family I want the man to be the head, to lead our family and support us in all ways. I understand that may annoy feminists, but it is just how I feel.
I heard this song on KLOVE the other day and I just cried. Exactly the words this man is singing were words I was crying this past summer. I wanted to be lead by strong hands. I wanted to have him stand when I couldn’t and you know what, God heard my cries and gave me that man. It wasn’t overnight and it didn’t come out of a good situation, but God knows what he is doing. And sometimes we have to deal with sour to taste the sweet. And it is hard to be thankful for things that have happened, but how can I not be thankful to have the husband I have leading his family the way it always should have been.
This picture means a new start. A new beginning from a couple that has seen it all and then some. We want to grow, learn and start a new and I am thankful to God for overseeing us and making marriage a union I whole heartedly want to be a part of.