making love convenient: by Franchesca

February 7th to 14th is National Marriage Week. to celebrate, some of my favorite bloggers and i will be sharing some our thoughts and stories about marriage to help encourage you to strengthen your own relationships. i hope these posts will help you nurture your own relationship and rekindle the love you have for one another.

i really feel like all of these guest posts lately have been inspired just for me to remind me that i need to try a lot better in my own relationship.
Franchesca's post is no exception.
her gentle reminder about expression love to our husbands & other loved ones was exactly what i needed to hear!
and i think we all need the same reminder every now and then.

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Hi new friends! I'm Franchesca and I run a little blog called Small Bird Studios. I'm so excited to be a part of Megan's Marriage+Relationships series. I hope to encourage your heart today!!

I remember growing up wanting never to get married. I had seen too much to imagine it would ever make me happy.

I decided early on (I think I was seven) that I would grow up, become a missionary to Romania and adopt a lot of kids.

I also had quite the imagination because my life couldn't be more different.

After being an unruly, rebellious teenager I was saved by God's grace at 17. Life was never the same.

I met my soon-to-be husband at church. I was head over heels in love with this man.

We dated for four years, and married in 2006.

I remember always drawing him these ridiculous (I'll admit it) word drawings in fat crayola markers of "Pete+Fran Forever" with hearts all over them. He never made a big deal over them but he would take them and they'd make him smile.

One day after we'd been married a few years he asked me why I stopped making them. I am pretty sure he was half way joking, but I didn't have a good answer.

The butterflies and puppy love had been bull-dozed over by reality. Life. Bills. School. Problems.

It also wasn't practical anymore. Or convenient.

Okay let's fit a drawing in between cooking you supper and getting your lunch ready for the next day. And oh yeah, while I type my English paper.

Geez.

But it also hit me that my love - or my expression of love - for my husband had become only what was convenient for me.

Because let's face it, it wasn't convenient to spend hours on end drawing him useless love drawings then either. I just made time for it. He was worth it.

So why wasn't he now?
This always stuck with me.

I do admit it, I would feel silly sitting and drawing love hearts for him today, but every now and then I'll drop a short+sweet note in his lunch box or send a random text message when he least expects it.

When it's not convenient. And there are a million things to do.

Because he's worth it.

I made up a freebie, based on love+Valentine's Day that I hope you enjoy. To download you can right click or visit my Facebook page :)

Thank you Megan for your gorgeous heart and orchestrating this beautiful series on marriage and relationships. I am so blessed to be a part of it!!

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did some of you read that post and think to yourself, “oh my gosh, i do this!!”
yep, that was definitely me!
i felt lovingly rebuked when i read Franchesca’s post for the first time and felt pretty ashamed that i would really put other things first before my husband.
i hope we all remember to put our spouses and family first from now on.
because like Franchesca said, they are worth it!

be sure to check out Franchesca’s beautiful & inspirational blog here.