My Man.

Well, I've been feeling better this week....at least less anxious if nothing else. I saw the psychiatrist and she was wonderful and said that she thought between hormones and recent events that I have not dealt with well, I've just plain been having a really hard time. She attributes all of my joint aches and muscle pains, and everything else to anxiety, depression and hormones. I had no idea that all of this could be caused by that. There is part of me that still feels like I have a postpartum thyroid problem, but seeing as how no one will diagnose me with that, I'm kind of stuck waiting all of this out. To top it all off yesterday I came down with a super painful hemorrohoid. Awesome. This girl just cannot catch a break.

It isn't easy being married to me. It isn't that easy being married to me on a normal day, and its especially difficult being married to me right now. Satan is attacking my family on so many fronts. One of the things that attracted me to my husband many years ago when we were young, was that even as a young man he was unwavering in his faith and in his devotion to people he loved. He has never been blown and tossed by the wind. He is steady and he is the same man of character today that he was 10 years ago. Of course he has grown, changed and become a better man. But he has always been the most honest and faithful person that I know.

Last week was hard. It was really hard. My husband is a man of few words. He doesn't always have the perfect thing to say to a very scared and emotional woman. Last week he held me, he told me it was going to be okay, and in the past few months he has put up with a lot. A lot of tears, a lot of coming home and not knowing what he was coming home to. He has put up with a wife who is severely lacking in patience with the kids, and generally is hard to be around. And yet he has been graceful, kind, gentle....in fact, he has been all of the things that he vowed to be on the day we married. In the midst of last weeks storm, he sent me this simple email:

Ben, will you have this woman to be your wife to live together according to God’s decree in the holy estate of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, faithfully keep to her alone, so long as you both shall live?

Answer: I will

I'm so thankful for his faithfulness to me. I'm thankful that everyday he really does forsake all others for me alone. I'm thankful that he loves me not just with his words, but with his life. I'm thankful that he honors me in the way that he speaks to me and about me, and in the way that he supports anything and everything to heal me. I'm thankful that he keeps me. I feel like the past few months have been terribly unfair to him, and that none of this is what he was hoping and planning for when we got married. But everyday he choses to keep me anyway. It is my greatest privilege in life to wake up next to this man everyday. I hope one day I can repay him for the way that he has loved me everyday, but especially for the way he has made a daily choice to love me when its really really hard.

So, now I'm trying to focus on taking things one day at a time. Its not easy for me. I feel like there is a hamster on a wheel in my mind. My thoughts just never stop, they run wild. Thankfully, I have things like a really great husband to think about, so that I can attempt to avoid the anxiety.