Small Town Lovin

Sometimes you are born in Dallas, TX. And sometimes your hometown is New Market, TN and you marry someone who is from Strawberry Plains, TN. Are those just not the greatest small town names you have ever heard of? (ok, so technically, my address is Jefferson City, but New Market is literally across the street).

Sometimes you never know where you might end up or who you might end up with. While my parents attended Texas Tech and breathed everything Texas (the Cowboys, Rangers, living right outside Dallas, cowboy boots, etc.), Nick's parents grew up in Strawberry Plains, went to school in Strawberry Plains, and met in Strawberry Plains. While none of my family lives in Tennessee, Nick's whole family lives no farther west than Knoxville. We're different. Our families and our families' values are very similiar. But we're different. We've seen homes run in different ways. Neither bad, neither better. They were just different. So that leaves us wondering how to make those two mesh.

Some of what we've been trying to decipher through in our marriage counseling is this idea of expectations. I get defensive when Nick asks me to do something that I do not see as normal or expected. And it's because I feel like I'm going to let him down. That I have let him down. That I'm a disappointment. It's a struggle in every area of my life. Being a disappointment. For much of my life, it's what motivated me.

And then my pastor, Ben, in marriage counseling helped me realize something that sets me free from the pressure of  being 100% successful in every facet of life. Ben asked Nick what I could do to disappoint him (outside the obvious of cheating, putting us in debt, etc.), and Nick couldn't answer. He couldn't figure out one thing that would make me a disappointment. I'm not exactly quoting, but what I heard Ben say was  something like this :

Nick delights in you, Kelsey, so much so that NO day-to-day fault could make him see you and love you any differently. His love is not determined by your dos and don'ts. He cannot be disappointed with you because he loves you.

If you have love, your husband delights in you. If you struggle with disappointment, know that the people that love you cannot stop loving you because of a fault. It sounds so logical, but inside of me is this battle of believing the opposite.