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I didn’t do a Valentine’s Day post because we don’t celebrate it. Beyond getting something small for the kids (my mom did this for us and it always stuck with me for some reason. It meant a lot to me that she would go out of her way on such a day), I couldn’t care less about Valentine’s Day and Maritus cares even less than I do (Yeah, I realize that doesn’t make sense, but go with me here).
I was reading Dalrock this morning and I came across this quote from Sarah’s Daughter:
My gift to him – a day of peace and quiet. His gift to me – the last 17 years of provision.
This says it all. And it’s not just one day, it’s everyday. I know that Sarah’s Daughter does what she can every single day to give to her husband. I’ve been reading her comments for more than two years and she works hard, because she knows what she has. She knows what her husband fights for every day and she is out there fighting back for him, giving him the strength and support to go out and do that fighting.
Don’t lose sight of everything you have been given in this life. The best and most important gifts are rarely things. Take a look around at the gifts your husband gives you every single day. They are enough to fill your life with love and joy and they are amazing.
*Painting is by James Peale and is entitled The Artist and His Family
Thank you for the kind words and the link, hon!
It was last Valentine’s day that I really had an awakening. For years RLB has gone through the dutiful motions of buying flowers or whatever for various gift giving occasions. And, while I appreciated the thought and the gift, it’s not like there was some kind of magic feeling I was experiencing. Last year he completely surprised me by ordering from Proflowers and Sherries berries. The flowers were beautiful and the strawberries were tasty but again, no bells or whistles (and it was so expensive). I contemplated this for a long time: what is wrong with me? Why is it that I don’t have this “feeling” that I’m supposed to have when he has done such sweet things for me?
The answer was loud and clear. His gifts are, like you’ve said so beautifully, Every Day. To put any kind of expectation or appreciation on a particular day and obedience to societal norms and consumerism really detracts from his continued gift to me EVERY DAY. The gift of provision, safety, security, the gift he has given me to be the wife and mother my heart desires to be. The gift that he’ll slay the dragons and take from me the burden of providing daily bread.
I do not want for any calendar day to concern him. I’m done playing that “let’s see if he’ll remember” shit test. It’s ridiculous when I think of all the sacrifices he’s made for us. In that comment I talk of the camera he bought for me. That’s what he does. I was frustrated with my phone’s camera and my inability to capture good pictures with it (I was trying to take a good picture of the birthday cake my daughters made for me). So he said, “go get a new camera.” I was giddy like a school girl.
SD,
Those random gifts, as you said, big or little mean all the world. Forcing a gift diminishes it somehow. I wonder if this is one of the reasons we hear so many stories of women getting angry with their husbands for getting the gift *wrong* on this day? It often happens when he gives exactly what she said she wanted but the feelings she thought were supposed to follow it don’t, so she gets angry and takes it out on him. It’s sad, really. It’s her own misguided expectations that ruin it for her.
It just is another way that shows that it is not the husbands job to make his wife happy. That falls on her own shoulders.