The Fight {choosing love}

 

I saw this quote the other day that said, "Divorcing your spouse because you 'fell out of love' is like selling your car because you ran out of gas."-Jefferson Bethke

Can I get an AMEN!?

I would not say I have ever fallen out of love with my husband. I have always loved him. There have been times, however, when I have been so angry with him I feel as though my blood might actually boil.

Like recently...

J and I have been picking on each other quite a bit lately, which is not really like us. We don't really pick, we either love {mostly we love} or we wait until bedtime to air out why we are ticked and we never go to bed angry.

But lately there has been picking, and eye rolls, and exasperated sighs that go unanswered.  We have been picking at scabs just to make them bleed and never letting the wounds heal.  It has been this way for months.  Last weekend the picking turned into a stabbing {too violent an analogy?? maybe}.  J blew up after I sighed at him, and when he stormed out of the house, I sent him a text that suggested he just not come back home that weekend. 

OUT OF HAND.

Thankfully, in that moment of my righteous anger, J took a step back and decided to choose me.  He calmed himself and sent me an e-mail full of all the reasons he loved me and all of the things that he has been feeling about our relationship.  In return I sent an e-mail full of all the things I love about him and all of the things I have been feeling in our relationship.  Turns out we were feeling the same thing, for very different reasons.  Basically we were disconnected, and we were not choosing one another.  That night when he came home he had these...

 

The man knows how to apologize.  We sat down and came up with a plan to get reconnected, to enjoy each other more, to not get so caught up in the work and the kids that we forget to choose each other.



Sometimes love is a choice.

When you have kids you love them unconditionally, there is nothing, not one thing, my children could do to ever make me stop loving them.  My love for them is all consuming and never ending.  Just like God's love for us.  There is nothing, not one thing, any of us could ever do to make God stop loving us.

My love for my husband and my husbands love for me is a choice.  It is a choice we make every day.  Some days the choice is easy, other days the choice is hard, and still other days we forget to choose, but it is always a choice.  Just like our love for God.  God gave us a choice, we choose whether or not to love Him.  We choose to serve or worship or pray.  Some days the choice is easy, other days the choice is hard, and still other days we forget to choose at all.

 

Once I was told that your relationship with your spouse is like a triangle.  You are on one side, your spouse is on the other and God is at the top.  The closer you and your spouse draw to God the closer you will be to one another. 

source

The night of our fight, I went to bed happy, feeling as though things had been resolved, remembering why I chose J in the first place, and resolving to begin choosing him again.

Then the nightmare came.

I dreamt that J had not chosen me, that he had taken me up on the advice not to come home.  I dreamt that he met someone else, that he was leaving me.  The pain I felt, it was so real, so excruciating.  I woke up and my head throbbed, my face was soaked with tears.  I scooted in as close as I could get to J as he slept, and I sobbed.  I remembered about the triangle.  I prayed.

I thought about how God must feel when we don't choose Him.

When we just forget to make the choice the way J and I had been.

When we take a step back and choose to walk away.

 

J and I need to choose each other, but we also know that before we choose each other we choose God.  Our relationship with Jesus is most important.

If you aren't choosing Jesus, how easy is it to stop choosing each other?

 

Our fight, and my dream, they snapped me back to reality.

What is True and what is Holy.

My God and my marriage.

Love is not always beautiful, it can be ugly.

But remember it is always a choice.

 

In Love,

also linked up with    A PROVERBS 31 WIFE

 

I saw this quote the other day that said, "Divorcing your spouse because you 'fell out of love' is like selling your car because you ran out of gas."-Jefferson Bethke

Can I get an AMEN!?

I would not say I have ever fallen out of love with my husband. I have always loved him. There have been times, however, when I have been so angry with him I feel as though my blood might actually boil.

Like recently...

J and I have been picking on each other quite a bit lately, which is not really like us. We don't really pick, we either love {mostly we love} or we wait until bedtime to air out why we are ticked and we never go to bed angry.

But lately there has been picking, and eye rolls, and exasperated sighs that go unanswered.  We have been picking at scabs just to make them bleed and never letting the wounds heal.  It has been this way for months.  Last weekend the picking turned into a stabbing {too violent an analogy?? maybe}.  J blew up after I sighed at him, and when he stormed out of the house, I sent him a text that suggested he just not come back home that weekend. 

OUT OF HAND.

Thankfully, in that moment of my righteous anger, J took a step back and decided to choose me.  He calmed himself and sent me an e-mail full of all the reasons he loved me and all of the things that he has been feeling about our relationship.  In return I sent an e-mail full of all the things I love about him and all of the things I have been feeling in our relationship.  Turns out we were feeling the same thing, for very different reasons.  Basically we were disconnected, and we were not choosing one another.  That night when he came home he had these...

 

The man knows how to apologize.  We sat down and came up with a plan to get reconnected, to enjoy each other more, to not get so caught up in the work and the kids that we forget to choose each other.



Sometimes love is a choice.

When you have kids you love them unconditionally, there is nothing, not one thing, my children could do to ever make me stop loving them.  My love for them is all consuming and never ending.  Just like God's love for us.  There is nothing, not one thing, any of us could ever do to make God stop loving us.

My love for my husband and my husbands love for me is a choice.  It is a choice we make every day.  Some days the choice is easy, other days the choice is hard, and still other days we forget to choose, but it is always a choice.  Just like our love for God.  God gave us a choice, we choose whether or not to love Him.  We choose to serve or worship or pray.  Some days the choice is easy, other days the choice is hard, and still other days we forget to choose at all.

 

Once I was told that your relationship with your spouse is like a triangle.  You are on one side, your spouse is on the other and God is at the top.  The closer you and your spouse draw to God the closer you will be to one another. 

source

The night of our fight, I went to bed happy, feeling as though things had been resolved, remembering why I chose J in the first place, and resolving to begin choosing him again.

Then the nightmare came.

I dreamt that J had not chosen me, that he had taken me up on the advice not to come home.  I dreamt that he met someone else, that he was leaving me.  The pain I felt, it was so real, so excruciating.  I woke up and my head throbbed, my face was soaked with tears.  I scooted in as close as I could get to J as he slept, and I sobbed.  I remembered about the triangle.  I prayed.

I thought about how God must feel when we don't choose Him.

When we just forget to make the choice the way J and I had been.

When we take a step back and choose to walk away.

 

J and I need to choose each other, but we also know that before we choose each other we choose God.  Our relationship with Jesus is most important.

If you aren't choosing Jesus, how easy is it to stop choosing each other?

 

Our fight, and my dream, they snapped me back to reality.

What is True and what is Holy.

My God and my marriage.

Love is not always beautiful, it can be ugly.

But remember it is always a choice.

 

In Love,

also linked up with    A PROVERBS 31 WIFE