💘 21 Years! 💘 and True Love on the Homestead

Today we celebrate 21 years of marriage!

I thank God for blessing us and for carrying us through the ups and downs of life.

Neither of us is perfect, so we certainly have bumps in the road

But, even today, on our anniversary, God is showing me that true love is not only about chocolates and roses, romantic dinners, and sunset strolls. It’s nice when those things are included, though, sometimes. 💘

True love on the homestead may include:

• 💜Getting up in the night to feed the fire
• ♥️Picking up socks
• 💜 Endangering your life to fix the roof
• ❤️Intimate moments
• 💜Packing a lunch
• ❤️Filling water tanks
• 💜Plunging the toilet
• ❤️Hauling trash
• 💜Cleaning up puke
• ❤️Digging trenches
• 💜Filing taxes
• ❤️Filling gas tanks
• 💜Scrubbing off the spots in the laundry
• ❤️Getting up in the night to pray for him or her
• 💜Filling the Berkey
• ❤️Shopping for building supplies
• 💜Checking the child’s in the car
• ❤️Saying something nice behind his back
• 💜Aaaand the backrubs and forest hikes, greenhouse tending and couple trips. ❤️

Tons of things can seem like ordinary chores (because they are), but when we get up off the couch and do them, without complaining, they are also ways to exhibit true love on the homestead.

And in the city.

Or the suburbs.

Or wherever.

True love is exhibited more in self-sacrifice in the daily duties than the grand gestures once a year. Especially when no one is going to notice. ❤️

But I will say, that the grand gestures definitely can be acts of self-sacrificing love. It takes time, intention, and effort to put together a grand gesture. So I am in no way saying that romantic dinners, flowers, thoughtful letters, and things that will sweep her/him off her/his feet are not ways of showing love. Obviously. It’s just that we (society) has come to equate only those deeds as the ones that count, and I’m just saying it’s not so.

True love takes both.

I am blessed.

We learn every day, and most of what we’ve learned has come through what’s gone wrong.

So…I’m just going to say that I am thankful for 21 years of marriage to a God-honoring man. I’m thankful for the road He is still guiding us down, and for God’s goodness to us, as we continue to learn and grow together

💘 February 4, 2001-February 4, 2022 💘