Love is an Action Word

There's little else better than having the rain dance lightly on my roof with a cup of hot tea in my hand and my husband, my best friend by my side. Yes, I'm in one of those moods. If you were looking for a slightly emo and poetic post, you might want to tune back in later because I don't think tonight is going to be the night for that.

My fingers graze my keyboard in hesitation, though. There's so much on my mind, but I fear I've bored you with it all before. There's only so many times one can say, "My dog did this..." or "My husband makes me happy because..." or "Alaska is so cool..." or "What the heck am I going to do with my life?" before you all will quit reading my little part of the internet world all together. This is not me complaining, though. It seems if I did have something to write, my odds are 50/50 that it could be something bad. I like to think of life that way. I'm thankful for the present- I'm healthy and happy and taken care of. What more could I ask for? Elizabeth Towne once said...

"It is by the best use of what we have that we learn our lessons and get ready for more things in a higher class."

Periodically (and by that I mean hardly ever and doesn't happen enough), I really try to delve deeper into myself and become completely introspective in my thinking of how I got to this point in my life and how I feel about it. I also wonder what attributes I would like to keep and I think of those that should be discarded. I know I have a lot within myself that I'd like to work on, but I also know that I've come along way (baby!).

Thinking back to a year ago makes me see how drastically my life has changed. During the last few weeks of July 2009, I was preparing to pick up my entire life I had built in Tennessee and plop myself down in the interior of Alaska and try to make it work. Sink or swim.

It's crazy what a driving force love can be, isn't it? I remember saying, "I'll never live in Alaska" and wholeheartedly believing that I wouldn't even visit. I remember my cynical self denying the possibility of love at first sight. I can also easily recall my dwindling faith in good, solid marriages. Those relationships existed only in the older generations or a very select few couples my age...or so I thought.

Living on love, I picked up my life and moved here to be with my soldier who I mostly knew via letters, emails, and Skype calls. I could count on my hands how many times I had seen him yet I knew that I would be with him forever. Saying that still feels odd to me because I was just not that girl who would believe such nonsense. Sure, I would hope for it but I never thought it was real.

Shortly after I arrived here, my then future mother-in-law told me this:

"Love is an action word. You have moved your whole life to be closer to my son and I am so thankful for that..."

I haven't forgotten those words. Love is an action and it's a choice every day. Knowing this and learning this has been the catalyst for the most change in my life this past year. Waking up every day and doing things for Captain J that seem small, but I hope are significant to him makes me happy. Opening up my bible and studying God's word and praying to Him shows my love in a spiritual sense. There are so many ways I can inspire change in my relationships with a simple completion of one little task.

Love is an action.