Not the "happily ever after" I expected...

Dear Daughters (or should I say, Snow White and Tinker Bell…),

This is probably how you will always look to your mommy and daddy. You are definitely princesses in our eyes! But, I've decided we need to have a realistic discussion about the whole Princess/Prince Charming thing…

Many little girls dream of their future with Prince Charming, who is sure to come for them one day and carry them away in a horse-drawn carriage to their beautiful castle where they will live, you guessed it, "happily ever after." Now, my purpose in this discussion is by no means to downplay that lovely idea, but simply to redirect it. 

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of the day I would meet my true love. Your daddy didn't come riding up on a beautiful stallion, but rather, in a gold Ford Explorer complete with a bike rack on top. Ahhhh, dreamy! I was smitten with that boy. Your dad is six years older than I am. He was 24 when we met during my senior year of high school. I couldn't wait to graduate so we could become "official." Scandelous I tell you! When you are young and in love, the idea that love is blind rings true. As far as we were concerned, we were perfect for each other! 

After a few years, your father proposed and I gladly accepted! I could now begin planning the wedding I had dreamed about for so long! We were married on June 21, 2008. It was a beautiful day for a wedding and we loved celebrating with our family and friends! 

See that couple, so young and in love? Well, I am happy to report we are still very much in love close to six years later. Are we living our "happily ever after?" Well, as far as I am concerned, yes! But, it looks a little bit different than you might think. Let me explain…

Little did that handsome man in the tuxedo realize, marrying me, meant learning to give up pretty much all of the bathroom vanity. 

See the shelf where the candle sits? That is typically where your dad's few vanity items end up. This picture explains a couple of things about your good old mom. First, I am a recovering slob. There, I said it. In high school my room was typically a disaster area. Lucky for me, the attic was attached to my room, so cleaning was a simple process really; if it didn't have a place, I threw it in the attic. Your grandparents looooved that little habit, especially when we got ready to move. Once I went to college and began sharing a dorm with other girls, I tried to keep my clutter to a minimum. We had our own bedrooms and shared a living area and kitchen. You'd have to ask them if I did a good enough job keeping things clean, but I will say there were times I would find piles in front of my bedroom door…

Now that I am married and have a family, I realize the need for a clean and orderly home. I strive to overcome this incredibly bad habit of mine in order to create a relaxing atmosphere for our family. However, the bathroom vanity doesn't usually stay clean for very long. Confession is good for the soul I tell you. I'd say it's the first step in overcoming certain obstacles. 

Moving on. Some days, I am so exhausted by the time you girls go to bed, that the kitchen table still looks like this when we wake up the next morning: 

It's bad. I know. But, it's a struggle for me to stay on top of everything at all times with a two-and-half-year-old and one year old. You'll understand this one day. Do you think Cinderella's castle looked like this? Doubtful. Do I let that make me feel bad about myself? No, because we all know she totally had servants. I mean, seriously. 

It's nice to dream about what it would be like to experience a truly perfect day in my current stage of life. I'd wake up at least two hours before the rest of you, feeling totally refreshed from a wonderful nights' sleep. I'd do aerobics, shower, get dressed, have my quiet time, drink my coffee, and have breakfast ready for my sweet little family who'd be coming down soon for the day. We'd all sit down and eat a nice hot breakfast together in the dining room. We'd practice our weekly Bible verse, pray together as a family for the day ahead and then we'd be off. Your father would head to work, as is his custom, and we would begin our day with a fun time of crafts, engaging learning activities, play time and simply enjoying one another. The crafts would of course take no time to clean up and we'd be on to lunch, then naps. During your naps, I'd straighten the house up, light a candle, sit down, and read a book for a bit, then start dinner. Dinner would consist of all natural, organic ingredients, and would taste and look like the meals I see in cooking magazines. Your father would come home, we'd greet him with smiles and kisses, and then we'd all sit down to enjoy our dinner. After dinner, you'd play with your father as I straightened up the kitchen…or better yet, he'd clean up the kitchen! Then it'd be off to bath time, family devotions, songs and bed. Once you girls were tucked away in bed, daddy and I would have a date night at home complete with chocolate fondue, cuddles on the couch, and a romantic comedy we both could enjoy! 

Ahh, just thinking about it makes me smile with delight! In reality, a day of complete perfection like that will probably never happen. First of all, I'm not sure I've felt rested a single day over the past three years. Typically I am quite proud of myself if I wake up an hour before everyone else and VERY rarely does that include showering and getting dressed before you're up. It's much more normal for me to rinse off my face, throw my hair into a bun, make coffee, try to sneak in a devotion or Bible reading before the day gets going, and be quickly interrupted by the sweet sounds of "Moooooooooooooommmmmaaaaaaaa" coming from upstairs. This is typically followed by, "da da da ba ba ma ma" coming from your sister's room. I get you girls up, we head downstairs and eat instant oatmeal. Yes, I feed you instant oatmeal. You will not die. 

Crafts NEVER turn out how they looked online, glitter is very difficult to clean out of the crevasses of our wooden table, and glue does not belong in the hands of a two-year-old…ever. The baby never ceases to eat things she shouldn't so I am constantly trying to vacuum and keep small toys and crumbs off of the floor, only to discover she's got a mouth full of little pebbles found in the bottom of the fire place. What is the purpose behind those little things anyways!? If you girls nap at the same time during the day, I consider it a big blessing. But, typically that time is spent trying to catch up on household duties, making dinner, etc. And let's be real, sometimes, I need to be using that time for my household duties, but the fact that I woke up feeling like I already needed a nap is really catching up to me. This makes me feel like a failure because if I could just have more energy, I could get much more accomplished! Your dad comes home, I am frantically finishing dinner, one of you is running circles around the house singing at the top of her lungs while the other is pulling on my leg because she is quite impatient when it comes to meals. We do try to sit down and eat together as much as possible in the evenings. That is a time I truly enjoy, but the whole cleaning up the kitchen afterward gets OLD. It's totally a normal part of life, but not what you think of when you think of fairytales and castle-dwelling. I get soaked whether I like it or not during bath time and by the time we finish the potty breaks, one more sip of milk requests, books, stories, prayers, songs, pj changes because the first ones were itchy, rocking because the baby is teething, and so on, I'm pooped. That's when I am tempted to throw myself on the couch and mindlessly scroll through Pinterest and other online mediums wondering if all those other people experience days like I do. 

Now, lest you think I'm complaining about our life, let me assure you I am not. We are absolutely blessed beyond anything I could ask or imagine. There are people around us who have incredibly difficult crosses to bear, hardships to endure, and so on. And let me tell you, seeing the excitement in my two-year-old's eyes when she finishes her sparkly, globby, colorful masterpiece is worth the time spent cleaning behind her. And, the sloppy open-mouthed kisses my baby gives after I have retrieved a piece of scraggly carpet from clinched teeth hiding her newfound treasure, bring me more joy than I can contain sometimes. Having a hard-working husband who loves his family more than anything and would work as many jobs as necessary to provide for us and make sure that we are taken care of is an invaluable gift. I never have to wonder if he will betray me or try to find happiness elsewhere. Is that because I am perfect? Absolutely not, in case I need to remind you of the evidence pictured above. 

You see, something your father and I have learned a bit more about since our joyous wedding day, is that the grass is never really greener on the other side of the fence. Oh, it's easy to believe that lie. In all honesty, it is a struggle from time to time for all of us. But, at the end of the day, every "princess" has her share of messy vanities and every "prince," well, let's just say men can revert back to their gross five-year-old boy days in a split second. 

In life, you are going to go through trials. You are going to be slapped right in the face with the realization of your own imperfections, and the imperfections of those around you. Some couples experience tragedy early on in their marriage. They also realize oneness and intimacy are definitely things they have to fight for. It doesn't always come as easily as it seems to when you are dating. There will be times when you realize you have $20 to make it to your next pay check. (Peanut butter and jelly anyone?) But, you know what? All of that, can cause one of two reactions within a marriage. You can either get through the storms, the valleys, the mundane, and the challenges by locking arms with each other, and with Christ, and make it through to the other side, or you can begin to believe the lie that you might be happier somewhere else, with someone new. Is the problem who you married? Probably not. Actually, in most circumstances, we are far better off to focus on fixing the issues in our own lives and hearts than we are trying to replace the ones around us who don't seem to measure up. 

When I was in college, a married couple spoke in chapel and I came away from that talk with a statement that hasn't left me since. They said, "no person is ever meant to meet your needs for true intimacy because those needs can only be truly met by a relationship with Jesus Christ." As a Christian, and a pastor's kid, I knew that concept in my head, but my heart still longed for the fairytale life I'd always dreamed about. During marriage counseling, I cringed at the title of a popular Christian book, "Sacred Marriage: What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" I knew I should probably read it, but in reality, I wanted my marriage to make me happy. I believed it could. I mean, we were simply different from all the couples who'd gone before us. We had something special. We were in luuuuuv…

I've since read the book I avoided in the beginning and have to say it has been one of the most influential things I've read when it comes to how I view my marriage. I realize I am an eternal work in progress, as is your father. People, including those you love the most, will let you down. But, you know who won't? Your heavenly father won't let you down. Those desires for intimacy and a happy ending were put in our hearts for a reason. They were meant to cause us to seek the one who created us. He is the one who longs for intimacy with us that could never be experienced in an earthly relationship. He's the one who will show you what absolute true love looks like. In fact, He did. 

"Greater love has no man than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). 

Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we could enjoy the ultimate freedom in Him. 

So, next time you find yourself imagining this:

Remember that desire was put there by God, for God, not for another person. Yes, God gave us relationships to enjoy and to teach us how to be more Christ-like by serving others and denying our own rights and desires in order to love those around us. He desires for our marriages and our families to be the truest display of the gospel of Christ that the world around us could ever see here on this earth. 

But, the truth is, God saw us like this:

and He knew He was the only one who could rescue us. He was the only one who could satisfy us, love us unconditionally, and carry us away to the truest happily ever after there ever was. That happily ever after starts with our earthly relationship with Him, and ends with a mansion built for us in heaven where we will live forever in the presence of the king. That's the truest love story there ever was or will be and it's much more than a fairytale. Jesus is the true prince. He's the one you can count on. 

While I do pray for each of you to find love here on earth in a relationship with men who love the Lord and would love you and your families, I pray first and foremost that you would begin as young girls, seeking a relationship with the king. As we have discussed before, you don't have to worry about fitting into a glass slipper or making the cut somehow. He has already chosen you and called you by name. 

And one day, if you find yourself sitting on the couch, trying to catch your breath while looking at a scene like this: 

Know that, first of all, you probably came by it honestly. But, second of all, you can smile in the midst of the chaos and know that your prince is on his way! 

I love you, my sweet Valentines!

Mom