Love

Mark and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this weekend, and I realized something. He made a silly joke on Saturday that it had been a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG 8 years, and I just laughed. He said that 8 years ago I wouldn't have laughed and now I know how to take a joke. He's right. I thought about that for a minute and realized that early in our marriage, I thought if he said anything negative, that meant he wasn't happy with me and wanted to leave. Not because this was the truth of the situation but because that was just how I knew love. I thought love depended on the mood or how you felt about a person...I didn't understand the "unconditional" part. Our love in our marriage is different....I feel completely secure in Mark's love for me. He's not going to leave or withhold his love if I upset him. THAT is how I want my children (and my husband) to feel....like my love is always there without question, regardless of their actions. God show me how to do that.

In Sally Clarkson's "The Mission of Motherhood", she writes, "When we face the Lord at the end of our lives, he will ask us, 'What did you do with those precious eternal human beings that I entrusted into your hands? Did you sacrifice your own life to give them my life? Did you pass on my purposes? Did you do the work in your children that will result in praise to my name throughout all of eternity?'" I want to ask myself these questions everyday. I have so much to learn.