Marriage - Narrow Paths to Higher Places

Five Minute Friday: Gift

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We set a timer, throw caution to the winds and try to remember what it was like to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt- no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Meet & encourage someone who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes on: Gift

Go.

This is what he brings. Forgiveness more than I’ve forgiven. Strong hands worn rough and calloused from years of rising faithfully to dip brushes and paint houses and brave the cold and heat and fatigue that construction brings to afford my presence at home connecting hearts and minds with Crayola and lullabies, and books read by the fire.

Hands that have caressed my hair and lifted my chin to meet his eyes when my heart is failing and I cannot see my way out. When I start to believe the lies and I want to hide the wretched parts of me, so glaringly obvious in the daylight, these hands uncover the truth of who I am. Beautiful. Wanted. Loved. Cherished.

He brings comfort and familiarity. Years stretched long with so much misunderstanding and hurts have paved the way for our commitment to lay a foundation of contentment and security. We have battled with tempers raging and words flung like feral animals, claws and fangs bared, and we’ve wounded. We’ve grown into our disagreements, often bantering and arguing with a smile on our faces, we will never be alike. We are too different. But we are one. I trust he will never leave me. I trust. We rarely draw blood with our words anymore, it’s no fun wounding yourself.

The infatuation of first love has faded over the years into something real and pure. These hands have held fevered children while they wretched and their tummies ached. These hands have rocked tired babies and laid them to bed night after night. These hands have brought me coffee in bed for years. These are the hands that reach for me when I crawl into bed, weary and drained from a day of dishes, and school books, and diapers, and little voices with constant questions, and rub my back and pull me close.

This is what he brings. Warm feet to balance my cold ones as we slip under the covers and he folds me into his arms. As I lay hearing the beat of his heart and feel these hands that I know so well, I am aware that they are a gift from my Lord, who knows how much I need them.

Comments: 8 Comments Category: Blogging, Marriage Tags: five minute Fridays, marriage

Your blog is only as good as your marriage.

I was planning on finishing up my post on Blissdom but upon arriving home, I was met with a nasty stomach bug. Think of this post as a five-minute Friday. I didn’t edit or over think and I’m still as sick as ever so this may or may not make sense. Josh had been gallantly holding down the fort while I was in Nashville. Nehemiah had thrown up all over our bed the night before I flew out so I knew I was leaving him with his hands full. He got sick also and between him and my mother, managed to clean up vomit, administer tylenol, and keep the house running.

I got in late Sunday night and after tight hugs and snuggles with the family, I crawled into my bed, happy to finally get to sleep after a long day of traveling. I didn’t know that I would stay in that bed for the next 3 days. My body began to ache and my stomach churned. I was either sweating out the peak of the fever of curled into a clammy ball. My soggy sheets were wrapped around me and I slept, vomited, and slept some more.

During all of this, Josh cared for the kids, who were still sick. Cleaned vomit from the carpet when Kaia didnt’ quite make it to the bathroom. Woke, rocked, and changed Nehemiah in the middle of the night while my fever raged on and I was in a delirious stupor. I am still in the throes of this horrible ick so I may be making less sense than I hope.

Tsh from Simple Mom, said something during her writing session at Blissdom. “Your blog is only as good as your marriage.” She was referring to her partnership with her husband and how they work together to make Simple Living Media, their family, and their marriage work.

After meeting so many amazing women at Blissdom and getting to know their stories, I am truly blessed. But the truth is Josh is and always will be my biggest fan. He supports my dreams, encourages my fantasies, and quells my insecurities. He is always there for me. After a week like this one where I have been pretty much catatonic, he has stepped up again and carried the burden for us both. He is one of the main reasons that I can do the things that I feel called to do. So, thanks Josh, for all the support. I couldn’t do any of it without you.

Comments: 10 Comments Category: Blogging, Family, Marriage Tags: blogging, encouragement, marriage

Five Minute Friday: Delight

Write for 5 minutes flat-no editing, no overthinking, no backtracking.

This weeks word is Delight:

Judah been doing a grammar program with Classical Conversations this year and we have pondered and classified and diagrammed the complexities of the English language. Which line does the object compliment noun go on? Is this a subject, verb transitive, direct object, object compliment noun pattern? And we often see inconsistencies. A word can be a verb but it can also be a noun, depending on how it’s used.

Delight is both. A verb that defines something that we do. A verb followed by in or an infinitive. We choose. We delight in… An action of finding that thing that illuminates our souls and allows us those moments to dig deep in that joy.

It is the corners of our mouths lifting and the eye crinkles and the belly laughs that are found in our children’s most adorable moments.

It is the serenity that comes from a hot cup of coffee, a blazing fire, rain tapping on the window, a warm blanket and a love-worn book, your only company.

It is the heart connected moments of true friendship, caring for each other in words and deeds, knowing that, “Where am I? Where’s my car and fried foods,” are inside jokes that only we share and thanking God for the blessing that these are.

It is the scripture leaping from the highlighted text and smoothing itself like a healing salve over our aching souls.

The action of opening our eyes to the joy that surrounds us and being filled with deep God wrapped pleasure.

Delight is also a noun. It is the stuff we treasure. It is those verb moments we find that burrow a place in our hearts. My children and husband are a delight to me for all those verb moments that bond us together in love. Those delight moments that make the intolerable tolerable. That make the grace abundant and flowing.

The delight noun is the person, place, thing, activity, or idea that transports us to the throne room of God where we see His glory displayed.

When we delight, we can truly see God.

Stop

I wrote for 5 minutes but I paused a little after two minutes to change a poopy diaper. Something I do not delight in. But I do delight in the little pooper.