Granola

 "Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves." Brene Brown

In the Winter of 1998 I was student teaching in a middle school classroom. Which basically meant I was consistently sick.

I came home from a long day in a classroom being eaten alive by sixth graders, with a fever and cold symptoms.

For you youngins - in 1998, you made phone calls from your home on a phone attached to a wall with your voice. I called SD, who I had been dating merely months at this time, and shared I was sick, coughing and sniffling the whole time. I was going to spend the evening in watching TV.

At the time I lived in Athens and he lived in Atlanta. This was a weekday and he had already spent his day in classes, and then working.

I dozed off and on and awoke to a knock on my apartment door.

SD had driven from Atlanta to Athens to bring me soup and cupcakes. Campbells chicken noodle in the red can (that's what moms fed their kids in the 80s and thus my comfort sick food ) and vanilla buttercream cupcakes.

Only to turn around and drive back because he had class again the next morning.

He had a full plate of responsibilities that he had paused because I was sick. He brought my favorite things, made me soup and hot tea and turned around and drove back to Atlanta.

I decided then he was marriage material. I wasn't sure if it was for me yet, but definitely someone should marry him.

Saturday I went to book club where I was very much looking forward to the cinnamon streusel coffee cake I order two mornings a month. And the company of my book club girls. But also the coffee cake.

When I got home, I was telling SD how they've ruined my coffee cake this month by making it one of the many pumpkin themed options. (no offense to you pumpkin loving folks)

This morning I woke up to cinnamon coffee cake sitting on my counter waiting for me.

I listened to a sermon yesterday on marriage. In the sermon, the priest tells a story about a woman whose husband always went to this specialty store to replace her favorite granola anytime it was out. Without her asking. He just did it because he noticed and he knew it was important to her.

One day he stopped replacing the granola. That's how she knew their marriage was ending.

I've been thinking about the woman and the granola today.

I think we all agree it's not that he didn't buy the granola.

It's that he quit doing the small.

He quit seeing what was important to her and prioritizing that.

He quit showing up for her in the daily.

SD and I have 27 years invested in our relationship, 30 if you count the best friend status for the 3 years prior to that.

There have been seasons of granola buying and seasons of not.

Because marriage is this journey of choice where everyday you wake up and you decide. "Today I will buy the granola. "

Mama Warriors, many of our seasons of "not" were in hard parenting times. Seasons of kids who didn't sleep at night. Seasons of teenagers who fought us on everything. Seasons of change.

I wish I had known then it was important to do the small even when it felt like I didn't have the small to give.

Especially when I didn't have the small to give.

We have to buy the granola even if they aren't. Especially if they aren't.

Because we're called to love them as He loves them.

Because "I do" included the granola.