What are you proud of?

What are you proud of? Is it your kids? Your job? That you're having a good hair day? Your house? I'll tell you what makes me proud, and thats my marriage to my husband. I'm not proud of a lot of things in my life, but one thing that I can say I am successful at and that is working at a marriage. Is my husband perfect? Nope....am I? HECK no....but my husband IS perfect for me. Why? Because both of us, from the very beginning, centered our marriage on Christ. We looked to Him when we had issues and prayed together and STAYED together. It also takes a commitment from BOTH people. I have many friends who broke up because one person was very committed and the other one wasn't. It definetely takes two in a marriage. And that saying about "the two shall become one"....it's true. When he feels pain, so do I. When he is in a good mood, so am I. He is a part of me, a part of my heart, my whole being is wrapped up in him. A marriage takes a TON of work, that's for sure. We had plenty of really, really rough times. At one point, I was done. I even started packing his stuff and worked up a whole speech about how this isn't working and he never spends time with me or the kids and maybe if we were to live apart, he would at least see the kids every other weekend.....I started talking to him about it when he came home one evening. He grabbed his stuff and said, " okay, if thats how you feel"...I told him to sleep on it and we can discuss it more in the morning. Well, that morning I woke up to my alarm clock and I had it tuned to "Focus on the Family" to listen to Dr. Dobson every morning. He had a program on that day about the stages in a womans life....and the topic that day really hit me. I rolled over, hugged my husband and said, "Don't go....lets work this out." And we did. At one point I asked him "Why do you even stay with me?" And he stated, "cuz I made a promise to stay when we got married." Wow. He was right. We both made a promise. So we stayed....and we worked....and we struggled, and it wasn't always pretty. Some years it was downright yucky. But you stay, and you work. And you know what? Its worth it. Every good year , every bad year....because for the last 10 years of our marriage, we have been best friends and partners. We hardly ever argue anymore. We laugh, we enjoy each other, we hang out together and do almost everything together. We fit. That is why this is so hard, this cancer....this THING eating away at the lifeforce that is my husband. He doesn't laugh anymore. He can't....he's too tired or in too much pain. Its a struggle just to get up or eat these days for him. Just to get in the car to go anywhere is agonizing for him. Waiting to get on this trial is agony for him and for me. Because he is a part of me. The best part of me. The thing I am most proud of. My love, my husband, my marriage. Thank you God for 33 years with this man. If for nothing else, I am grateful for that.