It’s Valentine’s Day and I have about an hour before I leave for dinner with my husband. We’ve had a great day. It started out on the hectic side; I wanted to leave for church by 8am. DB had to finish some work before joining us for the service so that meant I had to get all four kids out of the house at that hour. It wasn’t pretty – I’m not very good at getting us all out of the house peacefully when time is tight (perhaps another reason I homeschool – I can’t imagine leaving the house that early every day of the week), but we managed to get out eventually and only fifteen minutes later than I had wanted.
The sermon today was about marriage; specifically how we can support and love one another, creating a safe place in our home and our relationship to share and grow together. DB, my non-touchy/feely husband kept his arm around me for the entire sermon.
I kept the kids with me while I finished up some Sunday school accounting, DB returned home on his own. When we walked in the door we were greeted by cards and a little treat for everyone. DB does great cards; special cards. The kind you keep in the bottom of a drawer. We’ve been married almost 11 years now and every year we get closer. At the bottom of the card he gave me today he wrote, “I know God made you for me.”
We haven’t done much else. Lunch. Conversations with the kids. DB put up new blinds in the homeschool room. He took the puppy for a walk with Aidan. Jacob made me a powerpoint Valentine’s message. I cleaned up the homeschool room with Abbie and supervised as the boys did a general downstairs clean-up. I just love being around them, listening to them play, reading to them, talking about things, taking them places. I am so content at home with them and so grateful to be able to spend these precious years teaching them.
But right now, I sit. While Aidan and Charlie play Wii and Jacob plays on the lego website and Abbie reads Lord of the Rings while cuddling the puppy, I sit. With a glass of champagne and a few minutes to spare before we have to go, I sit. And I think about the infinite greatness of God.
I’m so blessed. Over the last week or so I’ve been reading about humility and the greatness of God. Do you want to know how I know there is a God? It’s because I don’t deserve any of this. Not a husband who loves me the way DB does. Not four healthy, happy children. Not this house or even this champagne. And all of the things I have been able to do? All of the things I do now? Only by the grace of God. His love is so great and his grace is so huge. I am humbled by the greatness of God and I can’t comprehend why he would love me, after it all.
Without Him… Without Him would we have managed to keep our marriage intact during the hard times? Without Him would I have given up? Given in? Without Him I wouldn’t be the person I am today; I wouldn’t have had my heart and my mind transformed. I know where I would be right now and I’m beyond grateful that God has rescued me and given me the life I have now. He saved me. And so I look around and marvel – are these really my children? Is that really my husband? Is this really my life? A part of me, the part that doubts, the part that remembers, is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because surely, I deserve it. But even that part is fading, and I don’t wonder about that dropping shoe as often as before. Because in my heart I know that I am a child of God. How else could any of this have happened if not for Him?
So, this Valentine’s Day, I sit. And I am thankful. And I am in awe. And I love. Thank you, Lord.
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