LOVING WHERE YOU'RE AT MONDAY

So here's the hip haps on me lately, I got ridiculously sick last week out of no where. I won't go into details but chills and throwing-up was involved. That was just to explain my slight absence last week, but today's post is not about that. It is after all 'Loving where you're at Monday' and what better way to love where you're at than to get inspired by a little love. Meet our dear friends, Aaron and Lisa...

Yes, that's right, they're newlyweds! We were extremely blessed to watch these two say 'I Do' over the weekend. They are both very special to us, very true and genuine people, separately they were both people that Steve and I loved to be around and when love struck between the two of them, I think we all secretly prayed for this day. Here's a little bit of that day

We really enjoyed ourselves, even our little lovelies had a good time...

It's amazing how two people become one and from that how much that love can multiply.

Today's Reflection:

Love can be a bit contagious, but unlike the illness that left me curled up in a fetal position last week, it's the kind of thing you want to catch. It's the kind of thing you see and instead of wanting to turn the other way you find yourself walking right into it. Love between friends, love between strangers, love between family, love between that one person that makes your heart skip a beat unlike anyone else. Loving where your at is easy when you put a little love on.
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. "
-1 Corinthians 13:1-3

LOVING WHERE YOU'RE AT MONDAY

Today and tomorrow, I am going to try to choose love. I may even try the next day and the day after that, it might catch on and I'll choose it the rest of my life. I know, it will be tough at times.  There will be times Steve will make me angry and I'll want to let him know how angry I am, but I will try to refrain and choose love instead. There will be articles or comments I will read that will offend me and I will want to tell them off but instead I will choose love.  I will come across people I don't understand and that don't understand me and I will want to write them off, but instead I will choose to love them.  There will be people who unfairly judge me and my beliefs and I will want to judge them right back, but I won't I will not let them affect my choice to love.

Like most choices there will be consequences. Each time I choose love, here are some of the consequences I am expecting, vulnerability, grace, growth, forgiveness and perhaps a little love in return. I know, some of you are chuckling or maybe even rolling your eyes, some of you know already that there will be days I will fail, but I'm not mad at you for knowing that about me, in fact I love you anyway!

" One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” "

-Mark 12: 28-31

DATE NIGHT

The first time Steve asked me out he asked if I wanted to go thrift store shopping with him. Ten years later, I am still a cheap date and he is still not the most romantic when it comes to planning our dates.  No matter what the date though, I still get excited to just be with him, I still love the way holding his hand feels and I still will change my outfit three times so that I look pretty for him.

I never would have guessed that it would become hard to date my own husband, but since having kids going out has been a challenge.  Some of you may remember it's a resolution for me to go on a date with Steve at least once a month. I have a hard time letting go of the reigns and feel extreme guilt leaving my children, even though they practically push me out the door every time I say goodbye!  I know most of you are much better at this than I am, and I wish I could, but it is my struggle so all I can do is work at it.  I do very much love that man of mine, so I give it an honest try.

This weekend, that honest try worked out and we had a successful date night! Like many years ago, it was still a simple inexpensive date....Movies

and a drive-thru,

but you know what, he could take me to the mail box and I would still try to flirt with him, I would still laugh with him and talk his ear off and of course still hold that giant hand of his. Anytime we can just be Steve & Serena we jump for joy!

(Thanks to Marvin Maldonado for the great photos!)

Today's Reflection:

Lord, I will honor the commitment I made to you and my husband.  Forgive me when I put other things above that commitment, things like my pride, my foolishness, my stubbornness, my selfishness, my own agenda.  Forgive me, and help me to become the wife and woman you created me to be. 

I am meditating on the scripture below, Lord help me live this!

"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
-Colossians 3:12-14