Hope Faith Love

We spent Friday and Saturday with friends getting ready for and then attending their wedding. It was beautiful; small, intimate, fun, and filled with happiness. I did a reading at the wedding and probably would have been able to keep from crying if the groom wouldn't have been tearing up during the reading (that's my story and I'm sticking to it ha ha)


During the ceremony, the pastor read the cornerstone verse of Geo and my marriage; our wedding theme was centered around it and our lives revolve around it: Hope, Faith, and Love. In every room of our house we have at LEAST one faith, hope love plaque/wall hanging. I can't choose a favorite, though the one I look at when I sit at my desk that was made by Geo's grandma is probably my favorite:


It's my visible reminder to keep faith, hope, and love at the forefront of my mind. So yesterday, as the pastor was reading the verse I was struck by something that I hadn't realized before this point-or hadn't realized consciously: "love is patient, love is kind,  love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."


Love is KIND. KIND


That's really all you need to know about love; that it's kind. If you think about it, being kind is truly the cornerstone of a strong marriage; it means being kind in your every day life; the little things-changing the trash before you go to work because your wife likes to start the day with a fresh bag, putting new napkins and silverware in your HH's lunch box unbeknownst to him, cranking up the heat right before your wife gets out of the shower so the bathroom is super warm, buying your hh's favorite snack just because.


It seems so simple, yet so many people don't do this. So many people struggle at just being kind to one another; they play the "I'm not doing anything nice because he never does anything nice" game, or "Why is she doing something nice? What does she want?" Love isn't supposed to be suspicious or rude.  


Does it go deeper than being kind to your spouse? Yeah, I think it does. You need to be kind to yourself above all. You need to know that YOU are worth it; that you are worthy (?) of someone else's love. I always thought it was bunk when people said that you had to love yourself in order to love someone else, but the more I observe people, the more I realize this is true. If you don't love yourself, how can you expect to love someone else AND take the love your partner wants to give? 


So today, go out and be kind-to yourself-and let that kindness reach out to other people. I once had a coworker who used to tease all of us about our attitudes toward ourselves, he'd say, "You know what I do? I put my arms around myself and give myself a big hug and tell myself 'you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, I like me'" We'd all laugh and get out of our little funk and go back to what we were supposed to be doing. This guy had the right idea-I am good enough, I am smart enough and I DO like myself...today when you're feeling down, give yourself a big hug and tell yourself how much you like YOU. You might be surprised at how much your attitude toward yourself can change your attitude toward your spouse...and theirs' toward you!


:)