Hard Choices

Watch this and tell me it isn't amazing.
It's almost 9 minutes long, but seriously, don't skip it.

This is radical.

This is God's love showing through.

And if God can enable her to love, then He can enable you to love.



You can read more from Larissa here as she answers the question of "Why We Got Married".

Larissa chose the hard option.  It was a choice.  It wasn't just a feeling. 
I'd like to think I would make the same decision, but I don't know.  I remember asking Dave if he would still marry me if I was in a horrific car accident and was disfigured and disabled; I also remember being angry less than satisfied with his answer at the time. 

I may not ever find myself in this particular difficulty with this particular choice.  But I know that I have found myself in other difficulties faced with the choice of whether or not I would choose to love Dave.  *Early in our marriage, Dave sometimes struggled with controlling his consumption of alcohol.  Sometimes he was very drunk.  Sometimes I didn't know where he was.  I remember kneeling beside our bed one night while he slept off the alcohol, crying and just praying for him, and for us and for wisdom.  I wanted to hate him.  But I had to choose to love him, to discipline my mind to take every thought captive and not allow the thoughts of hatred in. 

God is awesome.  That Dave is not the same Dave I am married to now.  He is 100% different and he has made his own choices to love me through my unloveable moments, and my sinful behavior.  After the birth of our third son, after my third c-section, I really struggled.  Not only was it a harder recovery third-time-around, not only was it just exhausting newborn-ness, not only was it another child under the age of four to care for, but I also was gifted with full-blown, official, horrible, not-just-the-baby-blues-postpartum depression.  Dave has told me that he had to daily pray through his selfishness, and through his desire to throw up his hands and tell me to suck it up and deal with it!  He had to choose to love me and to serve me.  It recently occurred to me that God showed His love for me through the self-denying service of my husband during that time.

It's a bit of a cliche nowadays, but love is a choice.  It just is.  And the struggle to choose - that trial -is good for you.

 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.(James 1:2-4 ESV)

Original video link: Desiring God blog


*Everything shared about Dave and I's story is shared with Dave's permission.

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Sharing with: The Alabaster Jar, The Better Mom, Time Warp Wife, NOBH