Wisdom from a stranger

I came across this picture on my family blog while searching for a quote I posted years ago. Verity is two years and and five months old right now. So this photo is probably almost exactly two years old. It feel like an eternity. Like I'm looking back on a stranger.

This is what I wrote with the photograph two years ago. Stranger or not, looks like I still believe it.


To Sophia (and everyone else I love)

“The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you'll see their flaws. That's just the way it is. This is why marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don't last. You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they're out of money or under pressure or hungry, for goodness' sake. Love is something different. Love is choosing to serve someone and be with someone in spite of their filthy heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice, it's seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship.” 
― Unknown

Who're we kidding, I'm never jumping ship physically. But this quote is why I am so intent to stop losing it with Sophia (and everyone else in different ways, of course). I am "jumping ship" with my heart whenever I mistreat her. And I want to be honest about that with her. When I try to process difficult moments with Sophia I find myself saying these kinds of things after hurting her: 

- I will always always always say I'm sorry. I will always always always forgive you when you've hurt me. 

- I will always always always find a way to soften my heart and start treating you right again. 

Davey and I have talked often (actually mostly before we even had kids and had time for philosophizing about these kinds of things) about saying, "I always love you, even when I'm mad at you." to our kids. What I've come to for me and how I want to talk to the girls about it is this. 

There are two kinds of love. One is mostly biological. You are my baby and because of that fact alone I would die for you anytime in a heart beat. Even if I'm super super super mad at you at the moment. This kind of love isn't hard for me, it is just there. All the time. It never leaves me. I'm like a mother bear and it is a part of my instinct that I could never get away from. I will ALWAYS love and protect you from outside harm at whatever cost. 

The other kind of love is the kind I have to choose. When I lose my temper or yell at you or feel mean feelings toward you, these are examples of times when I'm not being loving. These are times when I treat you poorly and when I would not expect that you'd feel love from me. Because I would be feeling resentment, frustration and animosity toward you. I would assume you'd be feeling my resentment, frustration or animosity, not love. But what I can promise about this is I will never ever ever let those feelings stay. I will always always always find a way to soften my heart and choose to let that love enter my heart again and I will always ask your forgiveness. I will always start feeling love again. 

Basically, I want to be honest that I am not always loving, but I will never leave you. I will never stop showing up. I will never abandon you, I will always repent and offer you the love that was missing during my failure. 

Okay so that was really long and rambly, but now it's on paper and that is something! 

Also, here are what I've heard Davey say over the years in my memory quote that is not a quote, haha:

"If someone tells me they love me while they're treating me like [crap], then they can keep that "love".  If the animals can have that kind of love then it's not what's going to save us. The kind of love that means something is the kind we have to choose. The kind we lose and then get back again, over and over, for our whole lives and in the greatest and never ending work of mankind."