Marriage Monday: Brittney's Guest Post - Life After "I Do"

I was so honored when Ali asked me to guest post about marriage on this sweet blog. It is also fitting since this past month, the month of May, was our 6 year anniversary.

To choose marriage is to choose love.  To choose love is to choose both life and death, like a flame that both keeps you warm and burns you.  To keep our heart’s soft towards one another is a choice.  I want to remember it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I choose this because this is the truth of marriage, motherhood, life period.  And I believe with all my heart that the truth is what keeps our hearts soft towards one another.

Don’t keep a record of wrongs.  But remember that real love is a battle field in which you get to make love and produce life.  Real love, love between two people who choose to work it out, to fight it out, it gets messy more times than it doesn’t.

I think that sometimes when it starts to look bad we think - Oh No! It’s all over!  We start to give up in our hearts.  There are real legit reasons for this sometimes, a heart can only handle so much right?!  Sometimes it's because we compare to others way to much not finding the beauty and passion in our own love story, all by itself.  We become jealous of others and discontent in our own love story and loose all our fight.

My dad use to say, “Keep your heart soft. Because you divorce in your heart long before you sign the papers.” Or something a long those lines.  That point is like the bible says... 

“Where your heart is, there you will be also!”

Listen, I love my husband and he loves me.  I love him more now than I did 6 years ago when I said, “I do.”  But don’t be fooled that there are not days or even weeks where we have to make a choice each morning when we wake up.  We have to simply or not so simply choose to love each other.

I don’t know if you are a praying person or not but I have to share with you the power in praying for your mate.  My best friend once gave me the profound advice to pray for my husband.  In the busyness of life, in anger or frustration, or just simply forgetting was I really praying for him?  When I started to think about how much I was really praying for him, it was not a lot!  I’m still getting in the habit.  But when I do remember to love on him in this way, praying for him, the Lord changes both me and him.  He gives me more love and patience for my husband and my husband listens to me more.  Funny how that works.

Being married teaches us so much about the Lord!

There are times I just list, in my head or on paper, all the things I love about my husband and all the different ways he shows me love.  Even though he may not have shown me love in all the ways I dreamed up in my head DOES NOT mean that he did not/does not show me love!  Often he does not do things the way I would do them, very often.  This can make me so, so, so mad.  I don’t hide my anger well or maybe at all.  He is often the bigger man.

I am utterly thankful for him in more ways than I can count.  He, we, I are not perfect and far from it!  But we keep fighting.  Fighting to be honest, to be real, to keep our hearts soft, and to take our thoughts and hearts captive when they do not love.  We choose to fight it out, to make up and to choose love.  To choose death of our selves and in that very process finding ourselves.

I am truly in love with my husband and I choose to be in love with him even when I want to run!

It’s not a lust or a feeling

It’s not based on good or bad

Pretty or ugly

Sexy or easy

Perfect or imperfect

I made a choice on May 12, 2007 to love Luke for the rest of my days and I choose to do so.

Whatever it looks like.

 

This is not a fairytale or a fantasy, its real life, My life.  My love is not a book or movie, but it is in my hands, tangible.  This is my life and my love story and I am determined to write it with bravery, determination, with a heart that will not give up and most of all LOVE.

Brittney's Blog: Brittney's Rabbit Hole

Wife to Luke and mama(x3) to kiddos affectionately known as Sissy, Bubbo, & Blue (who are better known to the world as Hadassah, Judah, & Levi) Brittney writes about the various loves of her life - family, photography, fashion, adoption, and so much more.  I'm so thankful to have stumbled upon her blog and continue to enjoy getting to know her through her writing.  Thank you so much for sharing the beauty of marriage as well as the realities we so often face.  I hope to always remember that marriage is a choice we are so blessed to make over and over again each and every morning!