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| table all set with our “fancy” carbonated juice |
The table was set.
The “love you” card was written in.
The brownies were baked
The baby was sleeping
Dinner was almost ready
And he was almost home
The timing was superb.
A surprise special dinner to share with my hubby. Celebrating 2 years and 10 months of marriage, and a thank you to him for working so hard at his two jobs to care for our family.
He got home, and I welcomed him with a smile and a kiss. Showed him his card and all the things I had done to make this dinner special for him. He was happy, I was happy, it was all going perfectly.
Then I went to go put the finishing touches on dinner, and realized something was wrong. a lot of things were wrong. It ended up being the nastiest thing I have ever cooked in my life. Gross and barely edible – for our “perfect” evening of celebration.
There was a time, when this would have brought me to tears. When I would have run from the kitchen sobbing about how I “always ruin everything”. But instead, I laughed. and he laughed and tried to convince me that “it’s not that bad” as we both choked it down. (We were hungry after all.) I offered to cook him something else, but he said it wasn’t needed. We enjoyed our less than perfect evening celebrating our less than perfect lives together. And it was wonderful. Wonderful to know that even when things don’t go as planned we will still be holding each other’s hands. Beautiful to see that even when things are ruined and gross, we will laugh in the face of defeat and love our time together.
Everything is not always easy. But we have each other. I am so very far from perfect, so is he. and we know it. But there is something beautiful in that because we know that we will be there for each other regardless of our flaws and mistakes, our love and commitment to each other just keeps on shining through.
Our imperfection just brings all the more glory to the perfection of God. And that is a beautiful thing indeed.
Through Him we laugh. And love. and trust.
Renee says
I’m visiting from Women Living Well Wednesdays. What a sweet post! Thanks for sharing it with us. Blessings!
Fawn says
I LOVE this, Paula! You are such an inspiration for married women. We need your voice so please keep blogging :).
Monica Tillery says
Visiting from the Time Warp Wife! I love, love, love this post. I’ve had a few bad meal moments, some I’ve been openly disappointed about but as I grow older it’s much easier to just laugh about it! Thank you for sharing!
Amy says
Aww – that’s so sweet. I love this post! Visiting from Far Above Rubies. And yes, I’ve been there with the somewhat icky dinner episodes. I’m so thankful to have a husband who will just laugh with me.
Anna @ happycookinghealthyliving.com says
You know Paula, I do this all the time! I set up the table really nice, like a restaurant, I light candles and get some nice background music on. Then get a nice bottle of wine open, cook something that we wouldn’t usually eat like lobster, scallops… get the whole 3 courses dinner and maybe write down a menu. I love to see my partner’s face when he comes back home and finds the restaurant set up. Last time I made bouillabaisse and it was a little expensive to buy all that seefood, but then I realised that if we went out we would have paid the same just for an ordinary burger in a pub. So basically in this way we get to have a really fancy dinner in a fancy restaurant at a burger price ;)
Also I love that we get the chance to spend some quality time together and talk, something we wouldn’t normally do if we are just having a quick dinner watching TV.