A St. Valentine’s Day Reflection by Andrea Nease
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A St. Valentine’s Day Reflection
This reflection is a bit painful to write because it forces me to be open and honest about several of my faults as a mother and a wife. But this is real life, and I hope others can relate to the ups and downs of daily married life and this can be beneficial to others.
A little background to my marriage: my husband and I have been together for seventeen years, and 2020 will be our twelve year marriage anniversary. He is the cradle Catholic and I converted when we were engaged to marry. I tend to be quick-tempered- but I also get over things just as quickly. My husband is slow to anger but has a harder time calming down once he reaches his breaking point.
Personality wise, we generally have always been opposites. Because of this, we are no strangers to arguments. Most of them are minor and forgotten by the next day by both of us. Even for the more difficult times we’ve always followed the rule of not letting the sun go down on our anger.
The last couple years have been our most difficult thus far. We had several factors working against us: pregnancy and the birth of our fourth child, major construction on our home, managing health complications for five of us, and financial difficulties stemming from all of that. We’ve always bounced back from our problems but we’ve really been tested daily on a level like never before, resulting in many more “hard” days than our other years of marriage combined.
Recently, during one of our small arguments, I found myself saying something I had never said before. Basically: “I didn’t sign up for this!”
It was silly of me to say and I knew I shouldn’t have even said it as soon as the words left my mouth. My husband probably wouldn’t even remember me saying it because we were over the whole thing pretty quickly.
But that day, God gave me grace and a reminder of something that He’s been trying to teach me these last couple years: that the road to holiness for me is as easy and as difficult as living out my vocation as a wife and mother faithfully.
He reminded me by helping me see:
I didsign up for this.
I signed up for this when I took my marriage vows before God.
It has been so easy to forget my vows. For whatever reason, the “for rich or for poor” and “in sickness and in health” seemed to be reserved for serious things- like becoming homeless or destitute, or being handicapped.
But that’s not true. Those vows apply to all the hardships we face- big or small. I said “yes” to everything when I took my marriage vows, as Mary said “yes” at the Annunciation and Wedding at Cana.
I know the Church teaches the primary purpose of marriage is the procreation, nurturing, and education of children- above the other purposes like mutual help. But how many times do I become weary and sinful in living out my daily duties, and thus not honor the vows I took before God?
Being a nursing mother carries its own difficulties. We are often sleep deprived. Touched out. Resentful of constantly giving ourselves. Some of us are battling complications with nursing that challenge us even more. Sometimes, i show my weakness by feeling sorry for myself when things get hard.
Now when I have those moments and wrongly think “why is this happening to me?” and “I wish this were over,” I find strength to persevere by remembering I made a promise to God and have an obligation not to let Him down.
For an additional reading on the purpose of marriage, try this article from CatholicCulture.org by Jennaya Aria:
Written by Andrea Nease
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