Love Notes for 12 Days of Christmas

In 2009, we've had 5 Christian couples  that are friends of ours separate, with 4 of those ending in divorce.


Satan may not tempt you with food. He may not get you to gamble. You might not abuse alcohol or drugs. You may have never killed someone. You may not even gossip.


It's worse. He's attacking our marriages. Couples you think would never split, do. Couples you look up to confess they are imperfect and hidden sin is revealed.


What are we- Trey and I- doing to protect ourselves from this?


For starters, we pray continuously for our love to grow and to keep our focus first on Christ individually, second on each other and thirdly on our family. We stray from things that could tempt our minds to drift to someone other than each other. I don't read secular romance novels. We are careful not to watch movies- even cute "chick flicks"- that have steamy romance scenes. If they come up, we look at each other or fast forward, if that option is available. We don't look at pornography. We are careful in relationships we build with members of the opposite sex. 


As dear friends of ours announced their split just a few short weeks ago, I thought to myself, this is insane! Failing marriages are everywhere. I don't want to be apart of that statistic. As I was unpacking boxes from our move last week (we've been moved for about 3 months, but I'm still unpacking!), I found a photo tree. As a mom of 3 preschoolers and 7 months pregnant with one more, romance isn't necessarily on the docket for most days. But, I have felt the Lord leading me to do something romantic for Trey. This is an area I lack in! Our communication is great, the love runs deep, and "other" important areas healthy (hee hee), but... actual romance... I'm just too tired for that most days. Anyway, I have no doubt the creative romance we've shared in the 12 Days before Christmas was God-inspired. I took that photo tree and placed it bare by Trey's bedside. I wrote him a love note- "one of the things I love most about you is..."- once a day for 12 days and placed them daily in the photo tree. He couldn't say enough how much it meant to him. Sometimes the notes were serious with overwhelming praise for the man he's become. Sometimes they were silly recalling memories where he embarrassed me with things like dancing ALONE in front of a crowd of people he didn't know was watching. 


He loved it.
Take that, Satan.