True Love

Posted on February 13, 2010 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

•  When you get sleep only in two hour doses and showers happen only after 5pm for the duration of time in which it takes the water to boil for dinner. 
• When the budget’s so tight, you can’t even remember what it’s like to have your nails done much less get a sassy little ’do. 
• When the great fear of your life is that someone will accuse you of wearing “mom jeans”, but you’re so desperate for clothes that stretch and move with you, you just can’t bother about it that much.
• When you buy white shirts not because they’re professional, crisp and sharp-looking but because it’s the only color you can drown in bleach to rid yourself of spaghetti stains or dried blood from your child’s nose.
• When the clothes in your closet are divided into sections: can wear now (not a whole lot), will wear after I lose some pounds (way too many), and formal nights only (too, too few).
• When you finally break down and wear blue eyeshadow just for that extra oomph, and your kids say you look weird.
• When you can’t choose a show to watch all by yourself because you’re so used to considering everyone else’s opinions all you know to do anymore is find a happy medium.

These are the times you start to forget who you are, what your talents are, what makes your heart sing. These are the times you forget what makes you happy, what drives you to do things, what makes you fall in love again. And again and again.

This Valentine’s Day, in order to demonstrate true love, I encourage you to be true to yourself.

• If you need to feel pretty again, don’t wish he’d notice all you do and offer to help. Use your voice. Ask your husband to take care of dinner so you can take the time to look really good today—including styling the hair, even swiping on some mascara.
• If you’re trying to be sensitive to a strained money situation, don’t hope that your husband will magically appear with a certificate to a local spa and prod you into spending time there. Tell him you’d like to get a real haircut, maybe a pedicure for Spring’s arrival. And together make it happen. Even if it takes you a couple of months to get the money and the appointment together, the promise that it’s coming will make it that much more exciting.
• If you feel great in a certain outfit, but your husband seems to prefer the old Polo you wore in the 90s, stick with what makes you feel beautiful today. After all, it’s not your outfit that attracts him, it’s the fire inside you that draws him your way.

Choose for yourself this day who you will represent. As for me and my house, we will represent the Lord. Intrinsic to that representation is an accurate demonstration of individuality. God made me into a force to be reckoned with when I run in His favor, in His Truth about who I am—or should I say whose I am?

Many of the things I feel I miss out on are simply because I don’t vocalize my needs. This is very feminine. I want to be romanced, understood, chased. I expect a man should know how to do this--especially after thirteen years together. But am I fair when I don’t tell him how to do this?

Love today by first remembering who you are. Then talking about it. It’ll be the best gift you can give the people of your life.

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