Figuring out love

Sometimes I feel like love is a puzzle. I have crossed the line from lust and feel like I am in this limbo situation.
Remember the early days of a  relationship? The infatuation, the desire, the passion, the want. Every waking minute the desire to be with this new someone, this amazing new person who makes your heart skip a beat.
The kisses are electric, the gentle touches ignite heat with the simple graze of a fingertip. Eyes meeting across the room, sending butterflies swirling through your belly.
After a while the infatuation becomes comfort. The touches, though still appreciated, don't ignite the same heat. Not every kiss is electric, becoming sometimes commonplace.
Love changes. The way we love each other changes.
I watch too much TV and desire to keep that first time infatuation. I want each kiss to be like the first kiss. The fireworks to be unending.
Love changes from the first kiss to the goodbye morning kiss. Love changes to the slow dancing closely to the hand on the small of your back in public.
I know that love changes. The way we love each other changes. I miss the newness, the excitement, the immense passion.
But, with all this desire to remember how the newness of love felt, I miss the reality of love that goes beyond the newness. The desire for the feeling of that first kiss makes me sometimes miss the butterflies that come when my husband greets me after work with a kiss.
Remembering the sparks of meeting his eye for the first name, makes me sometimes miss the look in his eye when he gazes across the crowded room to make sure that I am having a good time.
Watching the romances on TV, the silly soap opera romances that are far from reality make me crazy. Instead of seeing what I have, make me desire for what I don't have, and make me miss what  I do have.
TV and entertainment have been called "emotional porn." I whole heartily believe that is true. The more movies I soak into my brain, the more I desire to have that undying love that is, most times, so far from reality.
My reality is that I have a man that loves me. Some days I push him away because I "feel" like he is not what I should have. The movies say that I should have a  man who always is perfect, tells me he loves me all the time, worships the ground I walk on, makes passionate love to me all the time.
In reality, he loves me, but sometimes is not perfect. He forgets to kiss me goodnight or to stay I love you, but it is not because he doesn't love me, it is because he knows that I know he does love me. He comforts me when I am sad, listens to my stories and wraps me in his arms when I need to feel him.
I am still learning what love really means. Love is not always feelings and immense emotions. The world leads us down destructive paths to believe that love is a fairy tale, but reality is so much better, if we let it be.
I need to see the love of my husband. The love that I was meant to have. I do believe that we are created to love someone. There are temptations along the way, but even those should lead you back to the path and the journey that marriage is.
I never thought marriage was going to be easy. And I learn more about myself and my husband every day. Marriage definitely changes you and I believe that we will only get stronger and grow closer because the one thing that leads us is love. No matter what, the good times and the bad times, I love him. I really do.

Still Alice

A couple of the girls at work has been in a book club for a while and since they were starting a new book I thought it would be a great time to join in.

The book that was picked by the group was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. The story is about Alice, through her eyes. Alice is barely into her fifties and diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She has to go through the loss of her memory while still trying to teach at Harvard, be a good mother to her three children and excitedly await the birth of her first grandchildren.
Alice's story was so moving. The amazing strength and pain the story touched my heart. I devoured this book, reading it quickly within a few days.

Although I did not envy Alice, I wanted to be part of her life. Genova had a bit of first hand contact with the disease, but through a ton of research she really grasped the toll of this incurable illness.

The words went straight to my heart and I know that they will with yours as well. The book was a great read and so well written. It was definitely one of the best books I have read in a long while.

Getting older

I am approaching 28 - Sunday I will be there. Last week, I decided to have a mini breakdown. Ok, maybe it was a HUGE breakdown, but mostly I kept it to myself, because I felt crazy.

One night I started to doubt everything. Where I was in life, what I was meant for, who I was, what I was supposed to be. Crazy thoughts, crazy doubts. I felt like I was in pieces.

The biggest thing to crumple my emotional stability was the fact that I am a Christian. I know that I will go to Heaven, I have believed in God for almost 20 years. I know the meaning of life.

But, I felt like I didn't know anything. I couldn't break through this funk. I wanted to stay in bed, to sleep forever.

Then, one night I took out my Nook (ironically a birthday present from my husband) and began to search for something to pull me out of the funk, get me back to reality and away from all the self-doubt.

I landed on a devotional about contentment, called Contentment. Seemed to be just what I needed.
In just the introduction I felt like I was lead right where I needed to be.

"Do we live like that, fighting so hard to stay on the peaks and avoid the valleys? If so, we will never be happy in either place. However, if we will trust God in whichever place we find ourselves, we will know contentment whether the season is easy or hard. We will find peace in the hard times because a good Father is controlling them, and we will not be anxious in the good times because our happiness is not bound up in having to maintain them. Good times are designed to come and go, but contentment is designed to be constant for all who are in Christ."

Although by now I should not be amazed by being lead to the right words, music, person or situation at the right time, I am. Amazing. I don't cease to be floored by the amazing ways God works. Even when I feel like I am worthless, meaningless or trite, God doesn't think that. Floors me.

Creating a mission

I was laying in bed tonight, praying, thinking that my life doesn't seem to have much meaning. Going to work every day seems so boring, so mundane. Lately I feel like I am filling a lot of my time with meaningless things, reading, Facebook, video games, TV.
I realized how disconnected, and how easily, it becomes when you take a step away from the word and prayer and active Christian fellowship.
During my prayers tonight I really felt lead to start a group of Christian individuals who would like to help struggling single parents. I have seen so hard it is for others around me to have the responsiblities of parenting and life on thier own. I really would like to help parents by giving them a night of free time to catch up on things they need to do, wether it be errands or some well deserved "me time."
I am still mulling over how to accomplish this and get it started, but I think it would be a great thing to offer a parent some free daycare in a time when they most need it.
If you have any great ideas please share! I really want to make a difference in both the parents and the child's lives and hopefully lead them to the faith that I have. The true meaning of why were were giving this opportunity on earth.