I know him so well that I cringe when he reaches for a bag of chips.

The chewing, the crunching. The jaw that works up and down like it was created to grind stone into dust. Each bite thrusting ugliness to the tip of my tongue until, finally, an exasperated sigh escapes my lips.

And I make sure he sees my eyes roll. No words, but that look was my way of reminding him that this was one more thing he does that puts my nerves on edge.

Love bears all things.

I shook my head and audibly groaned when I saw the neat pile of folded laundry on our bed. My new cotton shirt — which should have been hung damp on a hanger — was still hot from the dryer and nestled in the middle of the leaning pile. Unwearable.

Somehow that shirt made me feel twenty again and not at all like a mom, but instead, like a woman on a date with her husband. A girl who actually chews her food one bite at a time and relishes the fact that he’s enjoying the view. Now it’s a size too small and clings in all the wrong places. The fabric no longer drapes forgivingly over my curves, and all I see is this soft tummy that accommodated three children.

I throw the unworn shirt in the nearest corner, disgusted. Huffing loudly, not even trying to hide my frustration, I let him know that his help was not appreciated. Just one more way he’s failed to meet my needs, read my mind, fill my heart.

And there was God whispering, love bears all things.

For so long they were just tiny words punctuated with {constructive} criticism. I told myself that I was only telling him how I needed to be loved, what he needed to do to make me happy. A hundred jabs sweetened with a million I-love-you-anyways just to reiterate I wasn’t that kind of wife. Oh, but I was.

My love didn’t bear his things.

Too often we believe the lie that the only way a marriage prospers is to encourage him to become an acceptable version of ourself. When nagging and criticism becomes a normal tearing down instead of a respectful building up and our words no longer communicate wisdom and kindness, we forsake the grace that sufficiently bears the weight of our humanness.

These are the deep wounds that slowly chip away at the soul of a marriage.

We bear all things because He bore all our things.

It took too many years, but I finally came to the stark realization that it’s not my job to make him better. It’s my job to make me better by embracing the purpose for marriage, the holiness before happiness that seems to get lost in the chaos of life.

For too long I tried to convince the man I married to become someone else. I lost sight of who we were in Christ together, brought together and made one by a merciful and generous God. I had to remind myself that deep and lasting love — godly love — comes from knowing another person intimately and not using the knowing against them.

How easily I forgot that love does not dishonor, and it certainly does not keep a record of wrongs.

Love does, in fact, bear all things. 

It bears the chewing, the forgetting, the shrinking, the snoring, the sloppy, the rude, the frustrating. Because true love kneels beside you to pray. It forgives and even remembers to forget.

And always, ALWAYS, learns to grab a chip and chew just as loud beside him.

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Related: Wear Love ~ 5×7 Art Print

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