love

it's valentine's day.

i know. it's over commercialized and cheesy and sometimes insulting. and i usually ignore it.

but this vday i just want to write about my marriage. a little bit. because my husband rocks.

i used to think he was pretty much perfect. before we were even dating he told me his biggest flaws, which of course just served to reinforce the idea that he was perfect. when we married i had all kinds of expectations for our life together. i doubt my man had half as many expectations. he just wanted to live and love and be together.

when we married one of my expectations is that he would lead, i would follow. he would be the patriarch, i would be the perfect and submissive wife. i felt like a rebel because we agreed to use birth control and i was working outside the home. sam, on the other hand, basically expected that we would work as a team. that the only real gender roles were that women just didn't preach and men had a heavier burden to provide.

when i finally grew to believe that my husband wasn't some liberal radical in that area, our marriage became what fit us most naturally. equal. a partnership. beautiful.

that does not mean things have been easy since. some of our toughest times have happened since we truly began to try to see each other. it's not easy to go from two someones who are trying to squeeze their true selves into a pre-determined mold to a couple trying to find completely new footing in a new and honest relationship.

on top of that, the scare stories told to christians about the evils and dangers of being "unequally yoked" are numerous. so here we are, unequally yoked and in a god-dishonoring equal marriage.

our love and our lives are pretty much the exact opposite of what "god wants."

and we are so. stinkin. happy.

i can not believe how much he loves me. or really, how much i love him.

it's so good, this love. better than ever.

so this vday, i'm in the mood to celebrate.

*insert shy grin here*