I was sitting on the beach in my little chair looking at my phone. All of a sudden I looked up and saw this…
My husband of 15 years and my 11 year old daughter, both with their hands on their hips, waiting to catch the next wave. My heart swelled and I thought, “I love that man.”
My parents got divorced when I was in 3rd grade. Whenever either of them said something uncomplimentary about the other, it hurt. Badly. My young brain always did the math. If I am 1/2 my mom and 1/2 my dad and one of those halves is bad, then I am half bad.
I thought about that when I took this picture. Look at how she stands just like her daddy. She is her own person, but she certainly has a lot of her daddy in her and I am grateful.
In 15 years, Saul and I have moved 7 times, had 3 children and between the two of us, lost only 1 breast. That’s a pretty good track record.
But I haven’t always loved my husband like I do now. Marriage is a funny thing. Sometimes you are grateful for it and sometimes it feels like a burden. I’m in a season of extreme gratefulness and I have been for quite some time, but I can’t quite tell you how I got here. It’s like all of a sudden I noticed all of the little things about him that make him unique and special and precious to me. They were always there, but I got so caught up in my own things, my own wants/needs that I didn’t see how much he was already doing for me and the people around us. Like the way he makes faces at little kids to get them to 
giggle, or the way he rushes over to cut up my apple because my arm hurts from the mastectomy, or the way he jumps in– all in– with my daughter when they see the next big wave.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: so many couples break up during tough times. A child gets sick or dies, finances threaten to sink the ship, or a wife gets breast cancer…
Work today to love your spouse so that whatever tomorrow brings, you can face it together. Saul doesn’t know what to do for me. He feels helpless because he can’t fix this little problem we’re going through. But it is enough for me to know, for better or worse, we are going through it together.