A Girl's Best Friend...

Almost eight years ago (it will be June 28), I got married. My husband took this skinny little band of white gold and slipped it on my hand and promised to honor, cherish, care for and love me no matter how good things were, and more importantly, no matter how bad. It was not a fairy tale wedding. I was far from a princess and he was far from a prince on a white horse. We were three months pregnant with our precious son and he was fairly newly divorced, and we were both hauling some serious baggage into the marriage. But still, that ring said it all. He promised. I promised. And so, our life together began.

A couple of weeks before that day, we sat at a restaurant in Kema, TX. He had in his pocket the engagement ring he had selected for me. It was a beautiful antique from the 1920's. It had intricate carving in the setting and displayed a shiny diamond with a rainbow deep down in the pinpoint as if it was on a pedestal. Though the engagement and the ring were just formalities, my friends oooohed and ahhhed. I had arrived. I had "the ring". No one really cared how I got it. I had the holy grail that we all idolized. We believed that the size and worth of the engagement ring symbolized how much our future husband loved us. We believed that the shinier the diamond, the more like Cinderella we would feel. We believed the whole pack of lies we had been told by society. My ring was big and beautiful but I would have traded it for anything if I could just change how I "got it". I couldn't have felt less like Cinderella.

Last weekend, my engagement ring broke. There had been a few times when the intricate carving had split and we had been able to have it soldered, but this time, it split in several areas. Because of it's age and all the soldering, it is not fixable. We can't get a new setting for the diamond immediately. It's just too expensive right now. And I am 100% fine with that. I opened my mouth and words I never would have thought would come from me came out. "Honey, this little band is the one you put on my finger when you promised. It's the real one. I'm content to wear just it for the rest of my life." And I am.

This skinny little band reminds me of the horrible first years that we had set in contrast to how good things are now. It reminds me of the night that I laid in the hospital bed after trying to nurse a screaming baby and my husband laid his hand right over my heart and begged God to please cause the milk to come in and somehow comfort me, and the Holy Spirit did (give me peace, that is -- the milk came a little later) and I was His. It reminds me of Guido helping me shower because I couldn't care for myself after a c-section, and again after I fell and tore my ankle up. It reminds me of the hard lessons he learned through a failed first marriage and he has taught them to me so that we will never see walking away as an option, and hopefully will do better than "just staying in it". It reminds me of the night where I decided to share my deepest secrets with him and I was so ashamed that I made him turn off the lights because I didn't want him to see my face as I shared, and when he turned the lamp back on, he held me and loved me even more. It reminds me of the sweetness that has begun to come in the past few years, as what was once that intense, romantic flame has softened and matured into what I know will always be my best earthly friendship "til death parts us".

I don't want my daughter to do things the way I did. But I do want her to realize that a poor man who can only give her a wedding band but loves Jesus and her and is going to be her prophet, priest, provider and protector is worth more than all the diamonds in the world. I don't know if my finger will ever wear that sparkly gemstone again. But I do know it doesn't mean I've lost my best friend. He lives in the house with me...