Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day.  Not really a day I have ever cared much about, but it's really fun now with Bailey.  We made heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast like my mom always did, and I'm going to take her to the grocery store to pic out a "big badoon!"  She's been asking for one every time she sees one, in her sweetest little voice.  It kills me to not buy her EVERYTHING her little heart desires!  She's excited to go get one, and she was REALLY excited to give Daddy the Valentine we made for him this year...

Same thing as last year- we made it 8x10 so I can frame it and put it out every year.  She keeps seeing last year's out and she points to it and says, "Did I make that for Daddy!"  (She's like Jeopardy, everything is in the form of a question).  This year, she painted and then stuck her Hello Kitty stickers all over it for him, and I added the letters and her picture.

So I was thinking about this thing called love. It's funny, my definition of love and what it means to me has changed so much over the years.  I don't think I was ever wrong, or people who don't see it the same as me are wrong, just different at different stages of my life.

When Rich and I first met on HS, I was head over heals.  Can't begin to explain what I felt for this guy.  He was my WORLD.  We hadn't really had any life experiences we'd gone through together, or anything that had really tested our relationship, but still, it was LOVE.  I was ready to marry him after a month.  I knew I loved him.  It was so different than any other relationship I'd been in, and such a strong feeling.  It was definitely more like infatuation, because I could spend the day with him, and then go home and be so anxious to talk to him on the phone for another 3 hours!  At that time, I would have explained love as such a strong friendship and passion for someone, that you can't stand to be away from them.

Through college our relationship was just as strong, but not as new, and more "comfortable."  We began to set goals and make future plans, and even save money.  We dreamed of marriage and starting a family together.  We both had busy lives and schedules, and saw each other every chance we got.  What I felt for Rich was growing even stronger, and at that time I would have described love as feeling sure, secure, comfortable with someone.  Love was when that person was your future, and you couldn't imagine a life without them in it.

Marriage brought a whole new dimension to the word love.  We had started a life together, and we were a team.  With our finances, our relationship, and every aspect of our lives, we dealt with things together through good and bad.  Our love grew stronger still I would have described love as a commitment to another person, not necessarily based on feelings, even though the feelings were there, it was an attitude to serve that person with your life and I started to see the person I loved as my "partner" in life.

Then we had a child.  Oh my my how that changes things!  We became three, and it was for sure an adjustment at the beginning to get back to "us."  We were a family, but our relationship was so important too and we had to learn to find that again in our "family."  Having a child was an adjustment  for our relationship, and at the same time it has brought us so close.  With Bailey, we were introduced to a love we never knew existed, and our love became not only a commitment to each other, but to her as well.

Since we first started out in HS, we have been through so much together.  We have had life experiences and struggles that we've met together, trials and testing in our relationship, and to this day I can say that our love grows stronger still.  We have had hard times, tough times, joyous times, awesome times, all of it.  With God at the center of our marriage and looking at our life together, love is so much different, and so much more to me now.  I love Rich.  He makes me laugh hysterically like no one else can, he encourages me, he is my best friend. He is the person I do "life" with.  He holds me up when I can't stand, he knows me like no one else will ever know me, he is the one I need beside me.  When I heard this song for the first time, the words had me in tears.  Some of the words are,

"Let me know what I can do
To bear this weight here with you
You do the same for me
Oh you do the same
You're the blood when my heart won't beat
Oh you do the same
So I hold the light in this night
So your eyes can see
You do the same for me"



At this point in my life, to me, this is love- probably because now I understand that life is hard sometimes, really hard (I don't really share all the hard stuff on this blog, but it's there), and Rich is more than my best friend, and more than my partner in life and marriage, he is my example of God's grace and love.  I don't deserve him, and I don't know what I'd do without him. God brought this amazing gift into my life, and God has helped us to strengthen what we have, and I am looking forward to so many more years together and an even deeper understanding of what love is! ... it's nice to reflect on love and be appreciative of what we have, but I still think Valentine's is kind of a dumb holiday... just got me thinkin'.

Totally unrelated, just thought it was cute!

Happy Vday Everyone!