What my Heart Needs to Say

I found pictures today of friends I once had. Who meant the world to me. 

And it's hurtful. Because I feel like I didn't do what they wanted so they left our friendship.

When Micheal and I starting realizing there was more than a friendship between us and marriage was ahead...there should have been joy.

Yet from the eight people who celebrated with us, there were ten times the amount who didn't.

She's after your money, he's after your youth.

He'll ruin your girls, she has three kids you're past that point in your life.

She is not Southern. He is not a Christian.

You'll have six kids, it won't work.

Don't marry her. Don't marry him.

A bucketful of dismal sentiments dumped on two recovering hearts believing in a love they began to feel.

Micheal has always forged his own path, but I had not. 

I strove to walk the straight and narrow of what was right in the eyes of the small world I lived.

So when we talked of marriage, it wasn't me pushing him ( yeah I know that surprises some of you naysayers)!

And as my world got smaller and smaller, I realized that most of the relationships I had were based on me doing what others wanted.

Because when I didn't listen to them, they disappeared.

So this straight and narrow small world I lived in became a solo journey of me.

I was forced to listen to myself.

To dig deep into my being and make a decision for me.

I felt selfish. 

I knew what my heart was telling me. Which was not what my head was telling me.

But defying all logic I went for it.

I can still hear the haunted gasps of those who left me.

Just give it a few months and it'll end. It won't last. The age difference.

All these things the world looks at is not what I know.

What I know is that I am married to a man who loves me at a depth I am not capable of accepting fully yet. Because I've never been loved like this.

I am married to a man who has grown to love my three little blessings as if they are his own.

I am married to a man who sits and listens to my rages of anger as another layer of protection falls away from a once broken heart in healing.

I am married to a man who is forever young while I grow older.

I am married to a man who does not recognize he has already given me the world. 

Every single day, every day, I thank God that I was brave enough to listen to me.

That I found a strength in myself to do what I felt was right.

For when the world judged without knowing, it was so very wrong.

There will always be those who have their opinions. 

And I know it hurts.

But if I had to stand alone again to get to here, I would.

Rare is it that we see the true gift of what we have until it's gone. 

Yet some how I am blessed to experience it every single day.