True love and the messes we make

Over the Christmas break I traded my two big girls for three adorable little kids so my counselor could go on the youth temple trip with her husband. It was wonderful! They are very good kids, and it was a tiring and sweet reminder of what my life used to be like a few years ago. However, at the end of it, Alan arrived home to find me exhausted and the house--especially the kitchen--a huge mess because I had been trying to do it all--including homemade pizza for dinner. (Wyatt complained that I was being much too nice to these kids. I never make cookies just for HIM to decorate or eat lunch at McDonalds just because HE thinks it would be fun.) After we ate dinner, I bundled up the cute little extras and took them home to put them to bed at their own house while I waited for their parents to come back. I walked back into our house fairly late, and fairly certain that I would be facing a huge mess to clean up either that night or the next morning. Wrong. The house was spotless--as if someone had waved a magic wand. That, my friends, is true love. I totally didn't deserve it, except that I married the right man.

As I thanked my husband for his gift, I realized how much it is like another gift we've been given--if only we marry ourselves to the Lord and his commandments. There is no way we will ever be able to accomplish everything on our road of trying to live a perfect life, but because of his true love for us his grace will make up for our imperfections and guilt--as if he waved a magic wand. Aren't you sometimes just so glad you know where to find that kind of love?