Day 11.

Un-con-di-tion-al

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, this word means: not conditional or limited: absolute, unqualified.  

I have spent two days now, trying to figure out how to prove my un-con-di-tion-al love to my husband.  I’ve got nothin’!  In order to get closer to an answer I’ve had to ask myself what this word meant to me.  This is what I’ve found.

I have an eight-teen month old toddler who is a handful!  Before I ever met her while I was still pregnant, I understood this word completely.  My love for her was absolutely, irrevocably, unconditional.  That has not changed a bit.  She has head-butted me in the nose.  bit me, hit me, thrown temper tantrums in which I have an entire store of people staring me down.  Deprived me of sleep.  Thrown up on me, and pooped on me.  No matter what this little girl does, there is not ONE thing that could ever remove my love for her.  When she gives me kisses and hugs it sends an electric shock through my body.  When she calls me Mama, emotion courses through my soul. Every little thing she does, I find myself constantly amused.  My love for her always growing deeper, and over and over again I put my needs last, and hers first.  Always. I don’t care if she tore the heart right out of my chest, as I was dying I would be hurt but my love for her would still be the strongest thing I have ever felt.

Should the love for my husband not be the same?  Perhaps it is.  Though I don’t feel the warm fuzzy feelings all the time.  There have been times in the past four and a half years that I feel have proven that our love for one another is unconditional.  There have been times it’s felt like he’s ripped my heart right out of my chest, and he has felt the same.  We’ve put each other through so many hurtful things yet we continuously keep returning to each other.  Maybe we’re just stupid, but to me, that’s love!  There were many times I swore up and down I hated him, but though I tried to walk away, my heart always found it’s way back to his and vise versa. For this reason we stood before a judge, and in front of witnesses we vowed to never again allow anything or anyone between us until death do we part.  

For todays dare, day eleven.  We were to do something out of the ordinary to prove that our love for one another was based on our choice and nothing else.  We had crayon and marker all over our walls from a little miss someone.  My husband was going to paint over it.  Instead I ran to the store and picked up some cleaner and spent a good hour scrubbing the walls down.  When he came home, he was so pleased.  It felt good to me.  For the past two days he’s done nice things for me, yesterday he made me breakfast, and this morning before he woke me up he had coffee already made up for me!  Too sweet.  These two things aren’t really out of the ordinary.  As of late I keep finding him doing nice things for me.  Though he said they weren’t what he planned on doing for the dare, I still count them.  He’s making choices which affect me in a positive way, so why not?  

I don’t want to make this too long, so I’ll close in saying.  Marriage is hard, I understand how easy it is for people to give up.  It’s not easy to do work, especially when it seems everything in life IS work.  Jobs, house chores, raising children.  Where is the rest?  I’m starting to learn it’s in the in betweens, then finally at the end.  Through God alone have I been able to find peace in this life, but it has always come most when I do the work.  I’m starting to find more peace in my marriage as we move forward.  Last night after my hubby got home I was able to truly enjoy his company.  I’ve realized that this is more often the case than not, I just choose to see the times when I do not enjoy having him around.  I’m starting to believe that perhaps living in the present is a better option.  I’ve found that I tend to come up with ideas of how I think he’ll react to different situations and I find myself getting bitter.  Today, I’m going to give it a try, to stop the negative thoughts as they come and to look forward to our next dare with enthusiasm.  Perhaps I’ll take another go at writing a list of expectations I hold and burning it.  We’ll see...

Tomorrows dare: Love Cherishes!