Tag: love

Pencils

When I was in elementary and middle school, obviously we didn’t have cell phones so at recess and during our lunch period we had pencil battles – anyone remember this? Where you would have your opponent flick your pencil to see if they could crack it. Pencils were all the rage lol. So were pencils that had characters, representative of what was popular, from Star Wars, Hello Kitty and even specialty pencils that had customizable sayings on them and everything in between. For me, I loved Care Bears and collected Care Bear pencils. I loved them so much I never sharpened them or used them – just had them. My mother kept them for me for all these years, in a box, unsharpened, unused – pristine. I was funny about my things – I also had a Hello Kitty notepad – never used, not 1 note off the note pad written on or torn off.

In the early years of my relationship with Dean, I remember telling him the story of the Care Bear pencils. This story became symbolic in his life with me to describe things in my life that I like the same – never changing and those things that are mine that I wanted a certain way. It became a running joke. During our journey through marriage, there have been many instances where I am unwilling to bend on stupid topics just because I like things the same – unsharpened if you will lol. And Dean in his humorous way took that unwillingness to change by me in stride and would joke about my pencils saying “Go Count your Pencils” or some other funny reference to my unsharpened pristine Care Bear Pencils.

Today is our 5 year anniversary. Over the past 5 years I have truly committed to working on being a better version of myself as well as being a Good Partner for my husband. Part of doing that is being open to his opinion (not just my own), working towards things that benefit our life together as a unit, not being so rigid and being open and flexible to creating a reality that we, as a couple, have a say in – not just my agenda and my way or the highway. Some of my rigidity comes from trauma of my past marriage and healing those wounds takes time, some of it is just who I am lol. Dean is as patient as Job from the bible and allows me space to get there on my own – loving me the whole way.

The traditional 5 year anniversary gift is wood. Pencils are wood. So in a box, in the attic, under 40+ years of memorabilia – I find them and know that this gift on our anniversary is perfect. I sharpened each pencil willingly and ceremoniously gave them to Dean as a symbol that I am ready…. ready to share my now sharpened pencils and I am ready for things that are ours…. And on cue, as God’s timing would have it, Dean and I bought a lot to build OUR home on. Funny how things work out, how opportunities that had once presented themselves years before, now seem to find the space to work out – maybe because I am ready now and before I wasn’t quite there yet. Like I said God’s timing is so perfect!

So cheers to 5 years and forever to go…. Please pray for Dean and his new pencils as we journey this project TOGETHER.

Somethin’ so out of the ordinary

If anyone has ever read my blog they know that I was devastated by divorce. Some posts were angrier than others and some were dripping with tears of sadness. Throughout the journey and my posts, I always knew and held onto the promise that GOD would use all the things (even the bad ones) to his glory and restore what was lost. Beauty from Ashes – and I made reference to that very statement many times – claiming it and willing it to be true, although I didn’t quite know how the restoration would look.

Of course, you know that GOD provided such an amazing man in Dean and I have a beautiful relationship but my worry was more about my kids and what they didn’t have and the intact family that was taken from them. How would God ever restore that? Would the generational curse of dysfunctional relationships and broken marriages/divorce continue in my kids?

In the day to day trenches, the foundation you lay sometimes gets overlooked and it isn’t until life blesses you with a little glimpse of perspective from those you are trying to impact the most that you actually sit back and think – “OK God this is what you were doing and your way was worth it!”

Just a couple of examples over the last year….

I recently had a conversation with my youngest daughter. She was detailing out for me the qualities of her perfect “boyfriend/relationship. I chuckled because the qualities she described were those qualities she sees in Dean… and those she sees in Dean and I’s relationship.

Maddie recently was excited to have me listen to this song she loves and told me the song reminds her of Dean and I. The song is called Ordinary. Here is a verse from it “The angels up in the clouds are jealous, knowin’ we found… Somethin’ so out of the ordinary”. She gets it! I think they all do. They see how beautiful our relationship is. Finding a “Dean” is now a verb when I talk to my girls about finding their person.

My big kids are grown adults with their own lives but Dean impacts them as well. He has stood in the gap for my son at his wedding, modeling what real men do when they love their families and is just as much of an example to my oldest daughter as he is to my younger daughters.

What has happened over the past 7-8 years has been a gradual identification and recognition of a true love story and a love that has set the bar for future generations. And that is worth all the pain and heartache I have endured to get to this point. God knew what my kids needed and He remixed my life to provide the most beautiful example of a love story – marital love in action and on display for all to witness and strive for in their own lives.