I said yes… again

I said yes…again.

Marriage is hard. I mean, really hard. You say “I do” to a person that you intend to spend forever with. No one plans on separating when they take their vows.

But it happens. Why?

Because marriage is really, really hard.

Everyday … I mean every – single – day is a surrendering of oneself to try to coexist with your partner. You celebrate successes together and try to encourage one another through the setbacks and disappointments.

And then you are blessed with children – that now bring such joy and such a love into your hearts that you never knew existed. But likewise it brings an exhaustion and emotion as you enter into new territories of stress that you have never walked before.

There comes times that you hit a crossroads and may question if it would be easier to call it quits. You may start to see only the negative and focus on what isn’t working as all of the stressors seem to snowball into an insurmountable mass that can be crushing to your relationship.

Marriage is hard. Parenting is hard. But balancing marriage and parenting can be really, really hard.

It’s so easy to pour yourself into your family, into your children, that you can lose yourselves and head down a slippery slope of forgetting who and what should come first.

I’ve come to find that every single day of marriage is saying YES, one more time.

Every single day you’re reestablishing your promise to one another that you’re in this together, you’re a team, a duo, you’ve got each other’s backs no matter what.

Every single day you’re fighting the good fight FOR each other. You may not always see eye to eye or even like each other some days, but this is the person you can never not love.

Every single day you’re saying YES … to one more day, of continuing on with what God has brought together, a union that needs constant nurturing and prayer and attention.

A couple years ago I lost part of the diamond in my engagement ring and then had to sell the other piece of my ring as we were going through some very scary financial times from my unpaid family leaves.

But today my husband put 2 brand new rings on my finger that we will have blessed and that I pray I never have to lose … for any reason.

Today I said yes…once again. And pray to God that I get to say it one more time, every single day for the rest of my life.

You can follow Regan Long at The Real Deal of Parenting