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I Love You More

February 11, 2022 by Lauren 31 Comments

I love you more“When one loves, one does not calculate.”  St. Therese of Lisieux

“To ‘spend out’ is to give up keeping score, to give love without calculation.”  The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal:  A Five-Year Record

 

I can almost remember when my husband and I started saying, “I love you more” to each other – but not quite.  If memory serves me (and it doesn’t always these days), I read a book the first year of our marriage in which the main characters had a similar exchange.  They created a word out of the first letters of each word and signed their cards this way.  For example, “I love you more” would become ILYM.

 

The book characters used a slightly different phrase, although I can’t now recall what that phrase was.  Nor the character’s names, or the title of the book.  But I digress.

 

I wanted to emulate this idea and landed on “I love you more” and ILYM. 

For 23 years we have attempted to one-up each other with this phrase. 

Click To Tweet
Sweet sentiments turned to fake arguments.  Both of us seeking to “best” each other in the love department.

 

The longer we have been together, the more I understand what it means to love someone more.  When the honeymoon period gives way to the “life-is-hard” period (which lasts a whole lot longer, btw); you not only learn what your love is made of, you learn to do it better.  Not perfect, but if you work at it, better.

 

The more I see this man of mine trust God through the trials, the deeper my love grows.  The more he handles with integrity and grace, the more I adore him.  It’s a love much deeper than the butterflies and romantic gestures now.  But to be honest, there is no way I love him better than he loves me.  He truly wins that contest hands down.

 

A Different Perspective on “I Love You More”

 

Recently I saw a sign in a store that finally made sense of our back and forth exchange.  And I bought it, of course.  I wanted to share the words here with you.

 

I love you more

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

P.S.  If you want to read about the greatest love that you can have, check out my friend Jessica Thompson’s new book How God Loves Us:  40 Days to Discovering His Character in the Fruit of the Sprit. 

 

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

I relate so completely with Lois Flowers’ post The Most Important Truth About Covid.  And she brings such hope in the midst of the nitty gritty.  Very timely and helpful.

 

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace and Truth_Meet Hosts

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

TAMMY KENNINGTON – Restoring hope. Pursuing peace.
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Now Let’s Link Up!

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

To find some great places where I might share this post, click here.

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Tonsil Cancer, the Wilderness and The Promised Land

February 4, 2022 by Lauren 34 Comments

Tonsil CancerToday is World Cancer Day.  Actually, for my family, right now, every day is cancer day.  I had planned to kick it Old Testament and write about my husband’s tonsil cancer using an analogy of the wilderness wandering.  I mean, who doesn’t know the story of the 40 year detour God’s chosen people took before they could inhabit the promised land He had for them?  Most of us have either studied it, been taught a Sunday school flannelgraph of it, or seen Charleton Heston act it out.

 

To be honest, the last 5 years have felt like a wilderness, or desert of sorts.  I mean, it hasn’t been bad the whole time.  We’ve had good times and good friends and generous family.  We will call these “manna”.  But on the same ground, we’ve also stepped in a lot of poo.    At least it hasn’t been 40 years of poo.  Not yet anyway.

 

That sounds so doom and gloom.  Yes, we grieve some of the things we endure, but we don’t grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).  We have the promise of a better time and better place – same as the Israelites.  We have a Father who walks beside us now in our affliction.  And through Jesus, He guarantees us a heaven free from pain and suffering.  Relief comes.  One way or another.

 

But oh, the pain we feel right now.  Are you sensing a lot of back and forth in this diatribe?  It’s how I feel on any given day.  Joy and sorrow.  Pain and delight.  Love and fatigue.  Laughter and frustration.  But we can hold all of it.

Am I emotionally exhausted or hopeful?  The answer is “Yes”.  I can be both.  And the God who keeps all the planets spinning and the myriad stars in the sky can also handle the totality of my emotions.

Click To Tweet

 

God Speaks Into My Wilderness

 

As all of these thoughts and feelings were rolling around in my head, I opened Jessica Thompson’s book How God Loves Us: 40 Days to Discovering His Character in the Fruit of the Spirit.  My Heavenly Father met me on Day 2 of this 40 Day devotional.

“[God] acknowledges the suffering.  He doesn’t minimize it.  He calls it as it is…The Lord sees that you are in the wilderness.  He doesn’t say, ‘This isn’t a bad spot at all!  Just have a better outlook, and you will see this isn’t actually a wilderness at all – it’s an oasis!’  No, the Father recognizes that the place you are in is difficult.  He doesn’t try to pretty it up or put a good spin on it.

Yet God declares that we find favor even there.  We find the outlandish favor of His love – the favor of a Father whose love is not dependent on how we are dealing with our circumstances but depends only on who He is.”

I’m not sure I can add anything else.  I’m just so grateful for the manna – the glimpses of the promised land – that we get to experience here.  And for the favor He still grants on the days I throw myself a pity party.  I’m even more grateful for the undeserved reward yet to come.

 

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

I had to share my fellow link up host Maree Dee’s Three Reasons to Participate in Grace and Truth Christian Blog Link Up – mostly because I agree with all three reasons!

 

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace and Truth_Meet Hosts

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

TAMMY KENNINGTON – Restoring hope. Pursuing peace.
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Now Let’s Link Up!

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

To find some great places where I might be sharing this post, click here.

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About Me

I love Jesus, my husband and caffeine. The order of these can change depending on how tired I am. When my two daughters, stepson, and 4 grandchildren get to be too much, I practice yoga. God graciously allows me to share our adventures, victories and flub-ups from my laptop. May He be glorified here.
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