When I enter the bedroom, put my phone on the charger for the night, he lays on my side of the bed, warming up my spot. He loves me this way for as long as I can remember. And when I approach my side of the bed to crawl in, he looks up from the Kindle to see my eyes and asks, “How are you?”

It’s not a casual question. He’s looking for the truth.

I hesitate to respond. Because sometimes the truth of what we hide on the inside, when self-doubt enters through the back door, it isn’t pretty. I vacillate. Count the cost of revealing the truth, about the lies I have just told myself.

That I feel insignificant when I read about what others do to advance the Kingdom, wonder if I do enough.  And really, it’s not just about sharing my faith, the accusations shout when it comes to parenting, being a wife, a friend, a housekeeper, and writer. Am I enough? Doing enough?

And when I tell him what swirls in my cerebral hemisphere, he throws his hands up in exasperation. Exasperation over my refusal to believe the truth he tells me repeatedly for twenty-one years now. That I am beautiful just the way I am, that God uses me in ways unique to how He created me, that I am enough.

Comparison is a sneaky diversion, a fork in the road to destiny. This truth telling, it keeps me from wrong turns, roadblocks, and major delays due to re-construction. It splits me open to heavens eyes, puts me back on the journey to hope.

When he apologizes, says he is sorry for the way he responds, love clears the fog that hangs between conviction and condemnation.  Clears vision when the reflection of me blurs.

It is hard to explain how love from a man that stands sturdy through wavering days and wondering can transform a girl into woman. Explain how fragments become pieces of beauty when tended by a farmer of truth who trusts in the power of redemption above sainthood to grow a person.

Marriage isn’t about meeting needs, but laying them down and forgetting you ever had them.

When I crawl into the warm spot he left on my side of the bed, curl up next to him, hold onto his arm, I laugh. All that guilt I carried into the room, it looks hilarious and out of place laying here beside love.

Joining the High Calling over at Jennifer’s place to explore the joys and struggles of marriage during the month of February. Also linking with Ann, and for one last time (for now) with Emily and Bonnie at Faith Barista, Unwrapping Love.