Pondered In My Heart

Celebrating 25 - Deo Gratias!

Yesterday was our special day!

We began the day before dawn with a drive up to the beautiful, peaceful grounds of the Carmelite monastery. We watched the sun rise as we drove along through the foggy morning mist. The early seven o'clock Mass was most beautiful, as it always is. It seems like a little taste of heaven to hear the sweet voices of the unseen sisters singing morning prayers.

After Mass, we renewed our vows and received a special blessing. As the priest knelt before us and prayed the Te Deum, truly the thanksgiving in our hearts was overflowing.

 

My husband is naturally very wise after twenty-five years of marriage. Knowing that breakfast at a restaurant is not really my cup of tea, he managed to locate a bona fide bakery out in the middle of nowhere as it were, and we gleefully stuffed ourselves (and the bride and groom each other) with cinnabuns and 'bear paws'. It was so delightful to have found this little family-run shop with fabulous home-made baked goods, and to top it off there was a prominent cross on the wall and brochures for a local CPC. Don't you just love it when you find such a right place at the right time!

 

When we got home Josiah gave us our present: an oil painting he did of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I love how he captured such a feeling of tenderness with the Infant's hand resting on His Mother's shoulder.

Isn't she lovely!

 
By the afternoon we were in much need of a nap, during which the children made us dinner and started on our cake. After supper we went out for a lovely long walk in the dark through the neighborhood while the party fairies worked their magic. They weren't quite ready for us when we got home, so we were sent upstairs for a few minutes, which worked out fine and gave me time to change. When they finally called us down it was my turn to surprise them...

 

Ladies, I freely admit this was a bit tough. In fact, after twenty-five years and carrying eight little ones it looked quite doubtful for a while - you know, like the Grinch, I got stuck only once for a minute or two with that pesky zipper... But then I did it! Ta da!

The kids did a fabulous and thoughtful job with their decorating, and we came downstairs to this-
 

and this-

and you can probably tell it was Josiah who took all the silver in the house and arranged this-

Here they are looking at our wedding album-
 
 
And here is the happy couple- (You just have to imagine Kateri with eyes as big as saucers taking in all that bling on my dress...)
 

Jonathan toasted us and directed his siblings to "stand around the table like olive plants". :-)  That's our original cake topper, serving knife, and the same bride and groom glasses we toasted out of twenty-five years ago.

It seemed just perfect to celebrate our anniversary with a party fashioned entirely by our children.

When we started out in our vocation of marriage twenty-five years ago we really had no idea of where this path would take us. We had no concept of the heights of joy or the depths of sorrow that we would encounter together. We were young and naive and frankly quite clueless about what a life of sacrifice and giving and forgiving that married love entails.

But we did know one thing. We knew we wanted to do life together, wherever it would lead us. We knew we wanted to love each other and be together every day of our lives, whatever those days would bring. In sickness and in health, in joy and sorrow, in good times and in bad, for better and for worse. We knew we wanted to love each other forever and we knew we never wanted to be apart.
 

And after twenty-five years, we still do.

Seeds of Love

I have nothing against roses or anything, but a husband who pulls over into a gas station on a busy road at night and gets out in the rain to get me these-

 
that's my kinda guy.

23 Years Ago Today

This handsome boy

 

and this curly haired girl

made their vows and started off on their course

 

of life together as husband and wife. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. I still can't type that without getting teary eyed. And he still makes my heart go pitter patter when he comes into the room. They say you shouldn't marry the person you think you can live with, but the person you can't live without. I'm so thankful He's allowed us to live this earthly life here together - growing a family, growing older, growing in love. Here's to us, and many more years together.

My Own Master Communicator

We all know how 'communication' is so important in a marriage. Danielle recently reminded us the language of long-married couples is a bit different than that of star-struck romantic newlyweds, and sometimes very few words are actually needed for great communication. At other times 'mature marrieds' do still need and desire words, but we also know that there is nothing wrong with making that need known.  For example, yesterday my major accomplishment in the big summer cleaning and organizing department was the office supply cupboard. I took everything out and arranged it neatly, giving it a complete overhaul and even labeling all the shelves. Monday nights are super busy here and I didn't get to show Michael what I'd done, so this morning I told him 'you need to ooh and aah over my clean office cupboard.'  He was in a hurry getting ready for work and simply answered, 'I already did'.

I had no idea what he was talking about until I came downstairs after he'd left and saw this on the cupboard door:

 

It's so nice that we understand each other. :-)

Fireproof

Michael surprised me with a present for Valentine's Day - the just-released-on-DVD movie Fireproof. We had a stay-at-home date that night and watched it together, just the two of us. If you didn't get a chance to see it in theaters last fall I highly recommend you get the DVD. We both thought it was awesome.

Fireproof tells the story of a couple in a troubled marriage, right on the brink of divorce. Indeed it was troubling just to watch the opening scenes, so grave was the fighting between the spouses. This young, attractive, professional couple, Caleb and Catherine, can't seem to say two words to each other without anger, accusations and animosity. Caleb has problems with rage, problems with porn, and Catherine clearly can't take it anymore and declares she wants out. But when Caleb shares this news with his father, he is met with a challenge instead of mere acceptance. Caleb's father suggests he give the marriage forty more days, and promises to send Caleb something in the mail to guide him in this final attempt to save the marriage.

What follows is an amazing journey into the meaning of unconditional love. Oh, we use that term all the time in modern parlance regarding relationships and we think we know what it means. But what Caleb undertakes, and his perseverance, is truly extraordinary. Caleb's father sends him a hand written book called The Love Dare, consisting of forty days of suggested sacrifices to do for his wife, along with Scripture to meditate on each day. Having no interest in that religious Christian stuff, Caleb naturally skips the Bible verse part, thinking it a superfluous waste of time. He agrees to follow along with the dare, apparently to please his father and seemingly to defend himself in a See, I did everything I could sort of way. His half hearted attempts arouse Catherine's curiosity, but she is already letting her heart slip away to someone else's affections, someone smart and handsome and who knows how to push all the right charm buttons to make her feel cared for and 'understood'.

Frustrated by his defeat and eventually heartbroken by his rejection, Caleb is ready to quit and needs his father's help to persevere. And it is at this point when Caleb has hit rock bottom that his father is able to show him his need for his Father.

Caleb accepts. The beautiful thing about this moment is that we know it occurs but it is kept private. We are never exposed to those inner workings within another man's heart that bring him to acknowledge the existence of his Creator and his need for a Redeemer, and we don't hear the words his heart brings forth when it does. We do know that Caleb begins to pray, and although we don't know his words we see the fruit of the change brought about in his heart. He begins to truly love and care for his wife with a servant's heart. It's not an instantaneous change and we see him continue to struggle, but he makes sure and steady progress as he sets out on this new path of New Life.

I don't think it's a 'spoiler' to say the marriage is saved - that's the obvious plot and point of the whole movie. But the story unfolds in a truly beautiful fashion, and yet there are plot twists and diversions that keep the viewer completely engaged in a full spectrum of human emotions. And there is a goodly amount of comic relief to keep it all bearable. Michael and I both thoroughly enjoyed this movie and we think it is fantastic that it is doing so well and is readily available to the public.

Responding to the Critics

I have read a number of reviews of this movie and I've been surprised by some of the criticism, particularly from people of faith; I read an article on CNN that was more positive than the review on Christianity Today. I've also seen various uniquely 'Catholic' complaints, such as the couple being married for seven years yet have no children. The issue is never mentioned in the movie, so we don't know if it's the result of infertility or the couple's own doing. It is quite possible and even likely that if Caleb and Catherine had welcomed children from the outset of their marriage that they would never have degenerated into the self-absorbed, self-serving, selfish people that they are at the start of the movie. But this film isn't about what they should have done or could have been; it's about how to salvage a relationship that is about to be dissolved now. My husband also noted that for the sake of the storyline it's good that the couple had no children, so there was no notion of 'staying together for the children's sake'. Caleb saw the marriage as worth saving on its own account, thus keeping the story applicable for even those couples who haven't been blessed by children in their own marriages. As the story unfolds the value and beauty of marriage is increasingly understood by the characters, and it seems likely that they would continue to grow out of their selfishness and welcome children in the future.

I've also read complaints that the movie is too one-sided, but that is exactly what makes the film and the 'Love Dare' so powerful. It's not about two spouses sitting down with a counselor and deciding to save their marriage together, and that's why it can give hope to so many. It shows that a marriage can be saved just with one person deciding to change, and that true sacrificial love can change another person's heart. It portrays the kind of unconditional love that we can only achieve with God's help - the kind of love that enabled Corrie ten Boom to forgive and love the Auschwitz prison guards or Pope John Paul his would-be assassin. That kind of love requires supernatural help, the kind of love God has for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  That's one-sided love, for sure.

Oh, How I HEART U, Too!

A little background...

In typical new house/ new development fashion, we have a beautiful new house with a lousy lawn. After determining that it is important to improve the attractiveness of our property, my husband set out to get us a lawn.  In the spring he contracted with a lawn serviceman to spread top soil and re-seed the whole lot, all for an exorbitant fee. It didn't work. The seed never sprouted and the lawn remained as pitted and grassless as ever. Undaunted, my dearly beloved husband has been working hard to improve the lawn, bit by bit. He's been very busy spreading buckets of topsoil here and there, sprinkling seeds, and watering, watering, watering to try to get some grass to grow in the worst areas.

I have been supportive of his efforts, but not without a good bit of teasing. Every night he goes outside after dinner to tend the bare spots, coaxing a bit of green. He has made numerous trips to the hardware stores trying out all manner of watering mechanisms, all the while taking this teasing from his wife. I joked about his brief love affair with the lawn tractor, his search for the perfect sprinkler, and the like. He has been sustained by the reward of seeing his patches of grass filling in, glorious green amidst the dismal brown. As is always the case in August, the rest of the lawn is dormant and completely brown and dismal looking from the lack of rain. I said the little random green patches look silly, and my dear husband actually agreed.

So you can't imagine how my heart swelled as I laughed out loud, peering out the window this morning to see this:

Oh, I do love this dear, patient, clever man that I married!!!

I can't stop grinning.

Isn't he a peach?

Crafting for Your Valentine

Perhaps you have been making Valentines with the children and have been planning pink everything for Thursday but you haven't quite figured out what to give your honey. With Valentine's Day nearly here, I thought I would share a Valentine card I made for my husband a few years back. You can get out your pretty scrapbook supplies, or your plain white cardstock if that's your style, and make a unique card that shows you care to give him the very best.

I started with a picture of the two of us on the front. I added hearts that say "Marry the one you love" and "Love the one you marry". If you need a little refresher on what that looks like day to day pop over to re-read Elizabeth's beautiful post on the Beatitudes for Wives. It will get you in the mood for loving your Valentine. :-)

On the inside I added more hearts with scripture verses. You could choose selections from Corinthians 13 (the Love chapter), or Song of Solomon ;-) (the Love book) or whatever strikes you as appropriate. Pick verses that inspire you and remind you well of the holy and sacred nature of this beautiful thing called married love. In the center I quoted How do I love you? Let me count the ways... I then wrote out a hundred things I love about my husband. The biggies, the little bitty things, the old, original reasons and the new ones more recently discovered -I wrote down a hundred of them. Give it a try. As you sit and contemplate and come up with your hundred, you can't help but thank God for every one of them. Thank God for the man he made just for you. Think about all those reasons why you fell in love with that man and all the wonderful new reasons you've discovered together through the years as you've lived out your married vocation together. Think about how much you love him and why and write it all down. Think of life without him. Think about how to love him better. Have fun counting to a hundred.

You will be giving your husband the gift of your love as well as the gift of a wife with a thankful and appreciative spirit. Thanks always leads to joy.

Give it a try - even if you just jot down your hundred on a plain piece of paper.

It will surely bless you both.