Being real

I suppose it's okay for me to admit that my marriage is not perfect.
It's really amazing, what I believe to be a true and incredible gift from God. I also believe that the way Bryce and I walk through our marriage is the way God intended it to be. Pursue, pursue, pursue with a side of always working toward unconditional love.

But one thing I'm learning from my side of this picture is this:

Walls between you and your spouse are built one stone at a time, most of them small and seemingly unimportant.

It seems like the walls start with just deciding you'll stay mad even though they've apologized, or allowing the other to walk out of the room sad and alone and leave them there. Going to bed angry might be one, or refusing to take their advice and change something in your life for the better.

I am amazed by how easy it is for our human nature to step in and push and kick and scream and throw our little fits at our partner and then still EXPECT THEM to come fix it. What effort did I put in? If I'm being stubborn and ungrateful, no matter how much pursuing he does I'll still be stubborn and ungrateful unless I choose to change my attitude.

So many times it seems that we think the problem lies in our spouse- THEY have GOT to change or this thing won't work. I've heard it from married couples before. If that's your attitude, no amount of changing on their part is actually going to help you. Until you step back and decide that no matter their response, you're going to choose love and forgiveness and serve however you can, your marriage will continue to be agonizing. I have seen, and found out myself that the best moments in marriage are when you've served and laid down your own life for theirs.

Thus i repeat, walls start with little stones, ones we think won't matter- hanging onto something we feel is important and bringing it up at a later date... "I'll do __ for him/her, but I will NOT do ___." My goal is to make sure those little stones get swept away every single time i lay them there, before any others can be piled on.

It's worth it, marriage can be heavenly, it can endure quite a lot and still survive- if you can get rid of those walls and be open and vulnerable enough to let your partner in, KNOWING they WILL disappoint and hurt you at some point, but if you can stay open through that the Lord will protect your heart and reward your patience and openness.