Happily ever after begins with understanding that happiness never equals perfection.
I didn’t marry the profile of a perfect man, I married a real man.
He screws up sometimes and often says exact the wrong thing at the wrong time.
He doesn’t tell me I am beautiful every day either and honestly he doesn’t even make me feel beautiful everyday.
I don’t even expect him to, because friends, I am NOT beautiful everyday.
I have picked my teeth, farted, and snored in front of this man who honestly just impresses me that he is willing wake up next to me everyday without being completely horrified.
Some days my attitude isn’t beautiful either.
I once threw a fork at his head because he told me that he forgot to buy french onion dip. I was pregnant, but still, the fork barely avoided his eye socket and hit right above the eyebrow.
I am pretty sure it hurt and if I wasn’t pregnant he probably would have grabbed the fork and chased me around the house with it.
I also shot him point blank in the head one time with a paintball gun standing not more than one foot away from him.
Thank God he is hard headed because apparently it could have killed him had I shot him in the right place. I thought his eyes were going to bulge out their sockets, but he took a deep breath and slowly walked into the distance–kind of twitching as he went– before killing me.
I just didn’t know that paintball guns were so intense; I kind of thought that they were like Nerf guns.
And that isn’t the only shot taken in our marriage.
I have yelled at him; he has yelled me. We have taken bricks out of the foundation of our relationship and thrown them at each other to the point I have thought we just might crumble to the ground.
That’s right, we have been there.
Marital problems are easy to romanticize, but the days when you have to diligently fight for your marriage and to keep loving each other during the worst moments of life are painful trenches.
We have been to some dark places together and the only light we have ever found there was Jesus. He is the key to success. When I am totally unlovable, Shawn loves me the way Christ loves me–unconditionally.
Each day we must echo God’s grace.
For He chooses to love me no matter my sin and no matter my fails–He picks me up and offers me unconditional love.
We must do the same for each other.
The rough roads we have been down have taken us to the most breathtaking places, simply because we have been willing to stay in the car.
The Duncan Story 