The hard love

It's Friday.
I've got five minutes... I think.
Go.

The hard love...

Hard and good. Hard and good. I've said a lot that these go hand-in-hand. So many moments of love that lead us to the hard, but good places. Moving overseas with a young family to do God-only-knows-what was so, so hard, but became (and is) so, so good. The boy growing and going to school on that first day in that first uniform was so hard, but seeing who he's becoming and how he's learning to love and have faith is so good. Giving birth... oh.... so, so, so hard (I could go on and on... the two boys came in typically hard-fought fashion), but afterwards a baby who came directly from God and is ours to love and nurture and protect and teach.... oh, so, so good. Waiting and trembling in hope sprinkled with fear, I've always thought that to be one of the hardest of all. But here in that waiting, I'm seeing how good it really is. The hard, but good ways we wrestle, we learn, we grow, we fall, we get back up, we rejoice, we mourn, we wait.

There's only one reason we do this, we put up with this, and we try again. It's because we love. The only way I can do it is because Someone first loved me. If it weren't for the hard love, I would've given up awhile ago.

Stop.

Yep, that's it. Hard to get that one down for some reason. Think it was the extraordinarily late sleep-in that's making me feel all fuzzy. Back to reality for this mama. Your turn now.