Happy New Year!!

2011 Is MY Year!!

The other night I was watching a re-run of one of my favorite programs, Criminal Minds, and they are big on using quotes in the beginning of the program and at the end. Well, at the end the quote was this:: "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." --Washington Irving

When I heard this I was over come by tears, of course, because I began thinking of the long, difficult, often emotionally and spiritually depressing year I have endured in 2010. It was my wake up call year, I think. I believe that God gets our attention through tears and the personal challenges that often accompany them--this makes me reach for His help more. But, 2010 was a year where I had to will myself to get up and move. I had to will myself to stop all the crying and get up and begin to change my attitude from one of grief and sorrow to one of hope and unspeakable love. It was the year when I learned about unconditional love and total forgiveness. These are extremely powerful life lessons and they came hard, but now that I am on the back side of this sorrow and this learning process, I am blessed beyond my ability to express it in writing. I have learned some life lessons which have been invaluable and that have increased my love for everyone around me but especially my husband.

I have learned what true unconditional love feels like, looks like in a long term marriage. My husband and I just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on December 15th. At times this year I was unsure the love we had for each other would sustain the many problems we had made of our life. We goofed up in the housing market, we goofed up in our financial life, and in this process we thought we would not love each other any more because of the mistakes that we had made. We were wrong. The challenges we experienced actually had the opposite effect. We found a love for each other that was not based on mistakes or a human condition. We found that no matter what we would be true companions and love each other with no conditions attached. The way that God loves us, really, that is unconditional love. It doesn't mean you get to continue making mistakes or hurting each other, no, rather it means that through all the challenges we face in life, we do it together. We have each other's backs. We stay together no matter what. We try to not make mistakes but instead we work as a team as true partners in this marital life together. We forgive each other our mistakes and love each other more because we have the power to forgive.

We are in the midst of laying down our gorgeous birch hardwood flooring over the nasty gray light sucking concrete floors that were in our condo. My design creativity is resurfacing with a vengeance, which is making me happy to be decorating and bossing everyone around! We have already painted the walls of the entire first floor Benjamin Moore's Linen White with pearlized finish. Together these two things are making our home light up! Literally. How unbelievably appropriate that this is coming at the end of one year and the beginning of another. I will certainly be posting pictures as the process continues but right now the saw dust is everywhere! Hah!!

My point in all of this is that every single thing I have endured this year as been for a reason. It has been for my good. It is the blessing of being broken or at least feeling broken, because when God breaks something inside me that is not working anymore it is replaced by something so wonderful that I could never even have imagined it. For me, it has been understanding deep inside myself what it means to truly love and to be loved in return. It has also made me understand how powerful forgiveness is and how truly freeing it is. I have forgiven myself. I have forgiven others. And I will love with complete abandon and deal with the risks associated with being vulnerable. Because without risking giving love how will I ever really experience it? And I want ALL of what life offers me, not just pieces of it.

Under our wood floor, written onto the concrete, my husband and I have written some sentiments to each other that only the two of us know about. WE have written them so that they stay in the soul of this new home we are creating together. So that when we walk over them we are reminded of their words and their meaning. We are reminded that love and forgiveness are forever linked if two people are ever to remain and grow in love for one another. We are reminded that God loves us no matter what and that we love God no matter what. And that we love each other no matter what.

Happy New Year. God bless.

Robin