My Endless Love

     Yes, I know it's a cheesy song from the early 80's Those of us who were teens in the 80's remember that it was the song for the move of the same title. I barely remember the movie and it's not really important to this post. I just like the cheesy title since I'm going to blog about my love for my hubby.

     Twenty-two years is a long time to be married today. We know lots of couples who have been married more than once. Lots of blended families. I'm not speaking badly of those situations just laying some ground work here for my blog.  We were married at the ages of 18 and 19, only about 6 months after we first met. In fact, Teddy asked me to marry him on our first date. Now he didn't propose undying love he was simply trying to get lucky! His words! Our whirlwind love affair started at an ice cream shop called "Vanilla Ice." I can't make these things up people!

     I suppose any love story that starts out in a place that served chunky chocolate by the scoop and had a pool table in it has got to survive the test of time right? Teddy rambled in one Saturday afternoon because his little brother was about to get his butt handed to him over a pool game. I'll never forget seeing him saunter into that place like he owned it. Long flowing dark blonde hair, flip flops . . . did I mention that he was wearing Bart Simpson boxer shorts as shorts? Yeah, I probably could have left that detail out. I thought he was pretty hot I mean I have always had a thing for long haired guys. It's left over from my teen years as an 80's rock chick. Let's just say that in the high society town of White Oak, Texas he was an oddity.

     As much as I noticed him, he had noticed me. He swears it was my legs that caught his eye. I was a lot skinner back then and I was pretty cute. Cute enough to have a thing with a younger guy in White Oak that drove Teddy crazy. Crazy to the point that one night while I was on a date with the other guy he followed us all over the place in his rusted out Pinto! Eventually I gave in and he took me out on my very first date. When I used the word "date" earlier it wasn't a date. It was simply sex. Perhaps that's a bit blunt but it was reality for me at the time. For me I had learned to equate attention from guys with sex. That's how it was. I had become numb to that.

     So here was this guy wanting to actually take me out on a date! I had no idea what that meant but I was pretty sure eventually it would just mean sex. Wasn't that what dating was all about? I had resolved myself to the fact that I wasn't ever going to have a boyfriend or anything serious but at least I could have come companionship however brief it was. He picked me up in his Pinto and it broke down on the way to the restaurant! HA! I'll never forget him hopping out of the car like it was no big deal and fiddling under the hood. I honked the horn. He bumped his head. It was the first time we had a genuine laugh at being silly.

     Our first date was so strange but sweet for me. He took me to the Cotton Patch. I thought that was so fancy! I was scared to eat in front of him so I ordered a salad. A salad is safe right? Figured I would scarf something down later but right now I was going to look dainty. Umm, my salad came in a punch bowl with a gravy boat of ranch dressing! People, I am not kidding! It was the biggest salad I had ever seen. Teddy laughed all night about that. I took a doggy bag home of salad but I remember thinking I loved that he laughed so much. I hadn't really experienced that with anyone by my few friends.

     Somehow we ended up at the mall. I wasn't really a mall girl. We went into a store, I think it was called General Merchandise but I can't really remember, and he led me to the jewelry department. Well let me tell you I was freaking out! What the heck was he trying to pull? I mean at that time in my life I would have "given it up" without some jewelry!! He bought me a small ring with two connected hearts that very first night. Not only that he put it on my finger. Later that night he would tell me he was going to marry me. I was petrified by this guy but at the same time I was pretty sure I had met the man meant for me.

     Our next date was pretty simple. We went to a park at night and sat on the swings and talked. Oh and we kissed! Well what was throwing me for a loop was that he wasn't pushing sex on me. In fact, he wanted to take me to the Gregg County Fair on our next date! Well now THAT is a date! So, we walked into the fair a few days later and for the first time in my life a guy held my hand. I remember thinking "What is wrong with this dude??" My hand got clammy and I was constantly rubbing it on my jeans but he always took it back in his hand. Eventually I was smiling and kept looking down at that mash up of fingers and thought it was really nice. Our sweet walk around the fair was interrupted by an "ex" of mine. Not really an ex just someone I had slept with in my quest for intimacy. He called me over and actually flirted with me in front of Teddy. Teddy didn't not like that and basically told the guy to never talk to me or look at me again. Ha! I was freaking out inside because no guy had ever took up for me or "fought" for me. Well, this was getting really interesting and I was in uncharted waters.

     I sort of imploded a bit and tested his nerves I think. I showed up very drunk at his home one night. I think that subconsciously I was trying to see if I could run him off. Didn't work and he stuck with me. I moved in with him and his mother about six weeks after meeting him. (Please note: I do not condone this. I was not a believer at this point in my life) We didn't really fight a lot. I just remember being so in love with this guy that it scared me to death. The fact that he loved me and didn't care who knew it was something new for me. I think for a long time, even after our wedding, that I kept waiting for him to realize who he married and run for the hills. That never happened, lucky me!

     We were married on February 14th, 1992, a mere 6 months after meeting. The negativity that our friends and family gave us was pretty regular. We were told we wouldn't make it past the first year more than once. Teddy had come out of a family of divorce and it had impacted him very deeply. It seared something in his heart and mind that divorce was never going to be an option for him. For me, I had no good examples of marriage. I fully expected him to do one of a few things: 1. Leave me 2. Hit me 3. Cheat on me. I mean that was what I had seen the adults in my life go through and why should I expect anything different in my own marriage? 

     About a month after our wedding I was pregnant with Tyler Wayne. And when Tyler was 19 months old I was pregnant with Dakota Grey. The stresses of marriage and kiddos began to really weigh down on us both. I became that nagging shrew of a wife that every man dreads and Teddy became the absentee hubby at night. He would get off work and hang out with his co-workers closing down the local bar. I'd be at home with the kids, stewing on how he was living "the life" and I was stuck at home. Well that certainly didn't translate into sweet loving home atmosphere. In fact, our first 5 years of marriage were hell. Let me repeat that dear reader, the first FIVE YEARS OF OUR MARRIAGE WERE HELL!!! We fought so much. I threw countless things at him. We bought a lot of universal remotes during this period of our lives. He just couldn't figure out that he was a husband and father now. The party days are gone. Family is first. I couldn't figure out that it wasn't my job to nag him to death or scream at him all the time. We were so lost.

     Eventually he joined the Army and became the man he was supposed to be. During his time in the military my own inner demons got the best of me and I had a clinical nervous breakdown. It was at this time that he could have left me and taken the boys. I was unfit at the time to be a wife or a mother. I was broken so badly that I can't give it adequate description here. He didn't leave, not even one tiny step backwards. He did everything he could to get me well. He even drove me 2x a week over an hour and a half away for my treatments. He never stopped telling me he loved me or that it would be ok. For his care and love during that darkest time in my life I am forever grateful. If that was the only thing he ever did for me I would love him till my dying breath but he's done so much more.

     Years roll by and we find ourselves in the ministry. He's an amazing man of God. I look at him and I see Jesus. I hear it in his sermons. I see it when he's pouring over books to pass yet another class on his journey towards a Masters degree. I watch as he talks with the congregation. Shaking hands, laughing and encouraging. He's a man who is so in love with Jesus that I have to look through Jesus to see him. I have never loved him more than I do right now. His faith is amazing to me. I struggle with doubts and fears that I'm just not going to be with Jesus. I'm not good enough. I haven't figured out how to conquer all my past demons yet. He is a fount of never ending encouragement and words of wisdom for me.

     He actually thinks I'm beautiful. Even 22 years later I'm like "whatever!" when he tells me that. I should really not do that I think. There is never a day that I experience a moment where I think "uh oh he doesn't want me anymore. He doesn't love me." Never in our years together have I felt that. Even when I was trying to make him leave me. . . he never did. There isn't a person on this earth that could ever come to me and say that my husband was cheating on me or didn't love me. You'd have a better chance convincing me that he's an alien. I've had my suspicious about that anyway! :P

     Some would say that I'm being naïve that I say without hesitation that I know my husband loves me and would never cheat on me. To that I say, whatever! I used to feel a weird sense of guilt for having a great marriage. I'd hear things from other women and would see that desire in their eyes for me to agree or say that I had experienced the bad things to. I would feel uncomfortable talking about how perfect my marriage is. Now listen, I say perfect and I mean it. Perfect for me and for him. 

     There isn't anything that I don't know about him and he knows every single thing about me. I have held nothing back from him. Even from the very beginning I was honest with him. Today he is my #1 go to guy when I have a problem. He's the person I think of first in the morning and the last one I think of at night. I laugh more with him that I laugh with anyone else. And people, I laugh ALOT! I have the most amazing friends in my life that make me giggle on a daily basis but my man holds my funny bone in his hands. I love our inside jokes that only we get. Little phrases that we say which will crack us up and make others look at us like we've escaped the local nut house. I cry freely with him. He knows me so well that when my brain is causing me pain, when my depression is threatening to take me over, he is so in tuned with me that he sees it and knows what to do. That makes him my heavenly soul-mate.

     Perhaps people don't really believe in soul-mates. I read a blog recently from a woman about her husband being her soul-mate and it made me look over at my man and smile. Cause I have my very own soul man! He's mine. There's something in the way he looks at me. The way his eyes twinkle when he's making me annoyed. He knows how to aggravate me to the point of smacking him! He is a know it all and you can't hardly win an argument with him. He's infuriating in this! Given those few minor annoyances he is simply beautiful to me. I would go anywhere he said to go. Sell everything I have to live with him in a tent somewhere, just as long as I have him. Yep, I love him to the very depths of my heart and soul but I genuinely like him as a person. How many married couples can say they really LIKE their mate? If you can't then you need to start trying harder because marriage is all about out serving your spouse.

     He's snoring right now. Snoring like a rhino in Africa. Snoring like a rhino in Africa with a deviated septum! Seriously? I may or may not cover his head with a pillow to stop it! Nahh, I won't do that but I will end up shaking him violently. He'll start snoring again and I will put my hand on his back. Not to stop him but just because I like to feel him breathing. Sometimes I wake up after a nightmare and the only thing that calms me is putting my hand over his heart. He'll barely wake up and ask me what's wrong. I recount my nightmare and he prays for me in a sleepy voice, covers my hand in his and goes back to sleep. I know that I will get to keep him with me until Jesus calls one of us home. Preferably when we are in our late 90's surrounded by our kids, grandkids and great grandkids. It doesn't matter who goes first because it will be a very short time and we'll be reunited again with our true love Jesus Christ! I can say that Teddy is my greatest gift from the Lord on this earth. I'm so thankful for him and I don't tell him that enough.

     Teddy you are definitely my endless love.

Love you babe.


    






    

Guilty Until Claimed Innocent

   

    I love watching COPS. It's a serious addiction I think. Its mostly due to my deep love and respect for law enforcement but also because I'm convinced I should have been a cop. So I live vicariously through my best gal pal Rox and her life as a law enforcement officer and through shows like COPS.

  I like to claim that I have street training as a cop because I watch so many crime shows. ;) I'm still waiting for my badge and taser to be issued to me by some police force. At the beginning of ever episode of COPS the voice says, "All subjects are innocent until proven guilty." I've heard that so many times. Something caught my attention tonight as I heard it again.

    I was never innocent until proven guilty. I was guilty until Jesus Christ claimed me and made me innocent. I had an "aha" moment and couldn't wait to get to my computer to write it out. In our world today it's PC to make sure everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You could catch a crook in your house, with your t.v. in his hands headed out the door and hold him til the cops show up. When the police arrive they will cuff him and read him his rights. As he waits for trial he is absolutely innocent unless the lawyers can prove him guilty of the crime. His lawyers will do all they can to prove him innocent.

     In our spiritual lives this is completely flipped on it's head. I was completely guilty of every heinous sin you can think of. The seed of the original sin, that sin of Adam from which all sin has grown, was planted inside me at conception. Within me was the ability to commit every crime great and small. Spiritually I was devoid of anything good and noble. I was bad and ignoble. I embraced the darkness and all that was evil in this world. I flaunted my guilty status like a badge to the world and to God.

     When I sought out Christ in my pitiful state, I was ready to let Him remove all my guilty stains. When I walked forward into the light of His death and embraced the fact that He died for me, my death stains were washed off. It was like stepping under one of those super cool waterfall showerheads after rolling around in lots of mud. Not the fun mud that we like to play in as children. This was sewage mud, the worst you can imagine. Sticky in my hair, caked into every crevice of my soul. Stinking and foul to the heavens. There was no hiding my guilt no matter how much I proclaimed it! I stepped beneath that flow of crystal clear water and it began to fall off. In my mind, because I think dramatically, I can see the dirt continuing to flow off of me and swirl in the drain before it's gone forever.

     Perhaps I'll continue to stand under that downpour of water from the Savior until I leave this world. Spiritually I am clean. I am dressed as a bride ready for her Groom. I am still on this earth and I still get contaminated. So, in my thoughts the cleansing never ends until He brings about the new heavens and new earth.

     Some days I can still smell the foul stench that was my former self. I can feel the tendrils of that past life trying to bring me back. Its in those moments that I hit my knees beneath that water and move out of the way to allow the Warrior King to fight those hauntings back into the abyss. I am no longer guilty. I have been set free. My God, my Savior has rescued me. And like a flood, His mercy reigns. Unending love.

Amazing grace.

In The Days Of Noah

"Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. "

"And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold I will destroy them with the earth" (Genesis 6:11-13 ESV)
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I downloaded a book called "As It Was In The Days Of Noah" by Jeff Kinley tonight. I barely got through the introduction and a few pages into the first chapter and I had to stop and write! I love that! I love feeling this compulsion to sit down and compose something that I know God is prompting me to write.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Your Holy Spirit that grows creativity inside us all.

Anyway, this book is about the similarities between the time of Noah and our current world state. I knew that Jesus had spoken directly about Noah and the evil he faced. Typically when I think about Noah, I get the cartoon image we tend to teach our children. Cute boat, huggable animals and a pudgy Noah looking on. That's appropriate for children but it's most definitely not accurate for adults. We need truth! I need truth! I want to think more about these things I tend to gloss over in my reading of the Word. Noah is a good place to start I think.

From the book, "Jesus believed in Noah. And the flood. And the Ark. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is there even the slightest hint that the man Noah, his story, or the worldwide Flood event is a metaphor, mythological tale, morality parable, or fictional tale. On the contrary, the reality of the Flood even is firmly established. But of course you would expect this from the Bible right? Even more amazing, however, is that Jesus links the historicity of Noah and his Ark to the certainty of coming prophetic events and His physical return to this planet."

Stop right there! Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, believed in Noah. How many times have I read over the Scripture where Jesus references Noah and didn't even give one thought to this little pearl! My Lord believed something to be truth and it is truth. Period. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was important enough for Him to reference it in His lifetime. It would probably be a good idea for me to dig deeper into Noah.

The author says, "Undoubtedly, Noah's is the quintessential story of prophecy, divine intervention, and judgment."

"This book unveils the heart of man and the holiness of God."

Scripture says that the people in Noah's time were wicked. They basically did whatever they wanted to do. There were no limits. Everything was permitted and nothing was off limits to the appetites of the people. Their hearts were evil. . . to the very core.

Ok. I'm thinking about this world around me and I see it without much effort. I mean it doesn't take a lot of investigative work to read the latest headlines of murder, rape, greed, lust and envy. So many more vile things are loose in our world and truth be told, much worse is set to come. We can't let ourselves become numb to the evil around us! Complacency will cause us to drown in wickedness and condone it.

Wake up from your slumber, O Christian!

Take into consideration these heart stopping words. I mean really meditate on them for a while. This is God the Father speaking about the people He created. The creation that He breathed literal life in to.

"And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, "I will blot out an whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them" (Gen. 6:6-7)

This book asked a question that really caught me off guard- basically had I ever really thought about how God felt about the whole thing? Did I ever consider the words written in Scripture about His heart? I can honestly say that I have never thought about it, not once!
I feel shame in my heart because of this. How could I have read this story and never stopped to consider what these words meant.

From the book, "God's Spirit was grieved. He actually experienced sorrow, an unusual concept to contemplate, particularly in the context of judgment. But there are facets of God's relationship with humankind that emotionally affect Him, bringing lament and regret to His Spirit."

Grief. Sorrow. Lament. Regret.

Those words are not trivial. They are speaking about deep, gut wrenching emotion. How much more are these emotions in our God? How much more sorrowful is Jesus when He looks upon this world He died for? I simply cannot fathom it. I think I can but let's face it....I can't. All I know is that this one aspect of the big story of Noah has be upset and really thinking about myself.

What sorrows do I cause the Holy Spirit?

What areas of my life are bringing grief to the Lover of my Soul?

Am I causing the Father to lament my sin?

Have I caused Him any regret?

Oh, dear Lord, I pray that I have not! I just can't think on it too long because I get emotional. I want so much to make Him happy. I want to make Him proud of me, His daughter. I want to walk through this short life remembering that I have a crown upon my head, I am Holy because HE IS HOLY!

Abba,

You know my heart, my short comings, my weaknesses. There isn't anything I can hide from you. I try though! I must exasperate you so much when I do that! Forgive me Lord. Savior, Your mercy and grace to me are beautiful. They are music to my soul. Joy to my inmost being. Keep me focused on Noah as long as you need to Lord. I'm here, I'm Yours. Mold me and teach me. I want to be open to what You have in store for me. No more hanging out in the shallows -- I'm deep sea diving with You my Beloved.

(More to come as I read the book)