A Love worth Fighting For

Valentine's Day with my lover and friend!  Last night, after we put the girls to bed, we watched Fireproof, the movie.  It was AWESOME!!  We rented it from the local video store, and cuddled up on the couch--which we normally sit on opposite ends so we can recline in our comfy chairs.  I think we both cried quite a bit by the time it was over.  Most love stories are about the chase, the falling in love, exciting, passionate part.  This was an enduring love story, of a young couple married about 7 years and literally on the brink of divorce.  Through the husband's persevering and unconditional love--which he must learn about the hard way, the wife forgives her husband and begins to love and trust again.  A marriage is saved, and two young people enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  It has been said that Satan will do everything he can to get people together intimately before marriage and everything he can to keep them apart after they're married.  Marriage is at stake all across our land, and I'm saying here today, that MARRIAGE is worth fighting for.  Listen to this song, A Love Worth Fighting For, by Warren Barfield.  Along these lines, my husband and I just finished up a DVD series by Emerson Eggerich called Love and Respect.  This is an excellent concept, also found in his book by the same name.  Women are called to respect their husbands, and husbands are called to love their wives.  Men and women are entirely different in their approach to relationships, and we need to embrace those differences.  One thing that has become obvious to me lately is that marriage is about so much more than a man and a woman trying to spend their life together.  It's more than making each other happy.  It has a huge vertical dimension to it:  it's about one's relationship with God.  Marriage is a beautiful picture of Christ's relationship to the church, of unconditional love.  It's not about how much our spouse may hurt us or offend us, it's about whether or not we respond in a way that glorifies God.  Because when we can totally focus on pleasing God, on loving him, on finding our joy through him, it spills over into all other relationships.

This is a page I made for my husband for valentine's Day, to share with him my desire to fight through whatever it takes to have the best marriage we can have.  Sometimes we get caught up in the mediocre and the everyday normalcy.  But I want him to know that I still choose him.  I choose us.  It's worth fighting for.