I give Danny Hill a lot of grief.  And I am not saying that he doesn’t bring a lot of this onto himself.  It is uncanny the way he knows where very little is in our house, and how horrible he is at looking for things.  And he can be a slob.  In pretty much every regard we are total opposites.  With that comes a lot of frustration and, unfortunately, on my part, lack of grace at times.
        But since I can publicly tease him about things, I thought I would take this opportunity to say how grateful I am for him, and what an amazing person he is as well.  Even in my lack of patience and grace for Danny, and how we (and life) have both changed over our last 5 years of marriage, never has anyone showed me so much grace and continues to be so patient with me.  Even when I can be absolutely horrible, the degree of love Danny shows me is undeserving and never doubting. 
        When I can step back and strive to look at things from a different perspective, I am overwhelmingly grateful.  Like the fact that Danny knows where nothing is.  Yes, I have seen this as irritating a lot in the past, but when I was thinking about it the other day, I had a great realization (that I am sure could only be from Jesus).  I am home to know where all this stuff is.  I am home playing with the kids to know that I saw them at some point in the day shove their favorite race car behind the couch cushion.  I am home to know that this week, Levi wants to wear his underwear on the outside of his shorts (don’t get me started), and that baby K stopped eating a certain food this week and that is why she is screaming bloody murder when you are trying to feed it to her.  And it is a privilege for me to be aware of the nuances of their day-to-day life.  It is a privilege I am awarded of being home most days only because Danny works (sometimes long hours) for our family.
        Our house being clean is important to me, and no one can wreck it faster than my family.  But there are two things that God has shown me lately in regards to this.  First, when Danny is home, he is not stressed or quick to clean.  And when he is home alone with the kids, this is definitely not a priority.  But, when he is home, our kids never have SO much fun.  And never have I received such a bigger blessing than watching him laugh and play with our children.  That is so much more important than how clean my floor is.  Secondly, when he does help clean, I think about how clearly this is such a good example in servanthood for our kids.  Because when they see Danny doing the dishes or vacuuming, it presents a whole new message to them than when they see me doing it.  They will see, “Oh, mom isn’t just doing this because she is stressed or being OCD again.  Dad is doing this, despite how much he dislikes it, because he loves mom and serves her well.”
        There are so many wonderful things about Danny and how much he loves us so wonderfully, and I won’t bore you with all the sappy details, plus I am not an overly sappy person.  I just got to thinking about these things because God has taught me a lot about marriage in the last 5 years, and trust me, I have SO much more to learn.  And we have so many friends and family members in different stages of this journey of marriage.  Some are just getting married, or are newlyweds, some have been married longer with much more wisdom, and some are sadly divorced.  I am not preaching to anyone, because like I said, I am constantly needing wisdom in this journey of marriage.  And I was told that marriage would be hard.  I was warned, prayed for and given great advice.  But as with anything, it is so different to just talk about something than to experience it first hand.
        Marriage has not been easy.  It was once really easy to overlook things that annoyed you, as you had these feelings of being “in love” overwhelm you.  And when these feelings go away, and you see the hard day-to-day of sharing life intimately with someone, you can wonder what you are doing wrong.  Why is your marriage not so easy and wonderful like everyone else’s?  And I know that in these moments, I needed more than anything for someone just to remind me that it is ok to feel this way.  Marriage will not always feel easy and peaceful, and it requires a lot of sacrifice and work.  And it has sadly taken me too long, in many instances, to allow God to show me things.  Like to not only remind me of why I fell in love with Danny, but for all the wonderful new reasons of why I love him more today.  Because our life is different, and in a lot of ways harder.  We are now responsible for little people who consume our time and energy.  Our conversations are had over people screaming and demanding things at the dinner table, or as we all crowd in the bathroom and give baths.  But love is also shown in different ways too, to adapt to our ever changing life.  Instead of being sad about how things are not the same, I have been encouraged here lately to see the beauty in how things are different.  Because in 5 years from now, our lives will look drastically different again, but if I allow him, God will continue to show me the beauty in that, and the vast ways I have to be thankful for so many new, great things.