Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Shelves

Remember this?


When The Cowboy was going to build me a glorious book shelf from all the old barn wood out in our field?








Well he did.

And it's beyond lovely.

And ya wanna know something else?

During these recent crazy months with all sorts of heart hurts that just seem to keep on coming, My Cowboy has loved me in a way that I can't even really explain. Sometimes when so many things around you start breaking down, you can't help but wonder if you might start breaking too.

And in the dark of our room, he held me close and he looked right into my eyes,

"They're not us, and "us" will always be."

He said it gentle yet firm.

And I want to believe him so badly but I can't help but wonder.

What makes my marriage different? What is it that's gonna keep us committed to that covenant that we made nearly 13 years ago in that little wooden church?

I wish I could Google it and find a ten-point list of  "if you do these things, you'll have a fool-proof marriage."

But there's really no such thing.

I wish I could just memorize a verse or say a specific prayer, but then again, a marriage is two sinners trying to learn to love one another above themselves and sometimes life just gets too seemingly unbearable.

The Cowboy and I, we aren't immune to the yuck of this world. The enemy can whisper the same garbage to us that he can to anyone else.

So we simply continue to love the absolute best we know how. He stops me in the kitchen and whispers silly things in my ear. He's calls me a few times a day just to hear my voice. I rub his head at night, make his bed in the morning and try to keep enough of his black shirts clean so that he has something to wear to work. We link hands in the dark and pray for one another each night.

Him and I, we set up seemingly ridiculous boundaries, and we commit to never being alone in a room with the opposite sex. We're intentional about the things our eyes see on TV and the internet. We purpose to encourage one another with our words and affirm one another with our touch, daily.

We pray and we trust that the Lord can do in us what we can't do in ourselves.

We can trust in His Word, and we can trust in Him.
And we can do this because He asks us not to live in fear, but instead to live in the shadow of His wings.

The Cowboy built me a shelf.

But even better than that, he's built up a marriage with the way that he loves.








 I wash the dishes in our sink, and I sing it under my breath,

"On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand."

How can I stand on anything else but Him?