A gnawing thought has been circulating my troubled mind lately. Does my husband feel loved? You see, I have been going through quite a lot of emotional junk lately. Alot of stress, disappointments, failing relationships, etc. etc. Unfortunately, my husband really has taken the brunt of it. Soon it began to bother me the mere possibility that my husband would not feel loved. I began to wonder, how could he possibly feel loved? And so, I asked him. His unequivical answer stunned me, enough to bring me to tears. My husband told me that he absolutely felt loved. How is this possible? After being at the receiving end of endless amounts of projection, anger, resentment and disappointments? He told me that he knew what was troubling me and he never allowed my tyrades to influence how he felt about my love for him. It doesn't mean that he was not hurt, but he was never without love for me nor did he feel any lack of love from his imperfect wife. I kept on thinking, I don't deserve this! I deserve for him to tell me that he didn't feel loved by me, that he felt cheated out of what he signed up for when he pledged his life to me over four years ago. I deserved all the negativity that I have given him for nearly every day of our marriage. Yet, I never received it. You know what I received? Love. Kindness. Hugs. Affirmations. Listening. A clean house. Coffee in the morning. Endless amounts of grace.

Friends, isn't this precisely the picture of the Jesus and what He did for us on the cross? We deserved death and eternal damnation because of our sin. I deserved condemnation from my husband, yet I received grace. I deserved for him to hate me for my failures as his wife and he seemingly loved me more.

This experience has been beyond humbling. I don't think I will ever forget this moment that occurred at our dinner table that night. And for the record, my husband did bless me with dinner that night and he did the dishes. The next morning, he had coffee for me when I was leaving to go to work.

Max Lucado has a great devotional called "Grace for the Moment". But, the Lord has blessed me with more than that. I have grace for a lifetime. I don't deserve it but I will humbly allow it into my life, as I grow in Christ.