More consistancy & Lessons on Love

In my attempt to find my voice again I am going to try and write more on this blog. Hopefully that helps those who are curious about my thoughts, feelings and experiences will visit on a more consistent basis because I am writing on a more consistent basis. I believe I made this promise before and failed, but here we go again... Ready set share :)

As Andrew and I approach our five year wedding anniversary we have begun to reflect over the last years together. There have been a lot of challenges, some amazing experiences and there are some really cool events coming up in our future.

However this five year anniversary, has been a really cool mile stone marker to take a look at our marriage and the partnership which we have truly enjoyed (and sometimes really disliked). Since the release of Mark Driscoll and his wife's book on marriage there seems to be a lot of discussion about marriage and relationships. I must preface that I have not read Mark's book on marriage so this will not be a review. I have read some reviews but don't really care to pick up his book. Mark and his wife and I don't really see eye to eye on most of their feelings about life and scripture so it would not be a book or a voice that would ever speak to me. But this is no judgement if that book did speak to you or was helpful... it has only inspired me to write and share a bit on this subject at least in the experience thus far within my life and relationship...

One of the biggest lessons that I am learning in marriage is that we love differently. The way we show love and the way we give love is very different. It has at times been the contention in our relationship and the prolonging of some major fights which probably would have ended much faster if Andrew and I saw the world exactly the same. However, it has also been one of the biggest way in which we have grown together and has stretched our ability to feel for others and interact more holistically within our world.

We are complete opposites and I believe that was one of the major aspects that attracted me to Andrew and of course Andrew to I. I saw in him some the characteristics that I either wished I possessed or wished I could improve on. In the same breathe these characteristics are also the most foreign to me and the ones which get under my skin the most. So yes in this very twisted life of relationships I love and hate the same things about Andrew...

I am learning how important it is to extend myself a bit and make myself a bit uncomfortable in order to meet the needs of Andrew. Because I love him that much I am willing to move beyond what I know, desire, and expect to meet him at a place which he feels safe and loved. Of course Andrew is learning to do the same.

Its not easy, but so worth it. Yes, we all love differently, but its not a wrong way to love. We just need to respect, learn, and evolve in the way we love together.

- A perfectly tarnished child of God