That time before my seventh anniversary when I threatened my dear husband with mozarella

It was a perfect storm. 

He was late coming home from work.

I was late starting dinner and while I waited for my pizza dough to (not) rise, I decided to start going through four tubs of little girls clothes, with said girls reminiscing over them and wanting to try everything on. "I remember this!" "This still fits me!" "Is this my size?"

Note to self: don't undertake a project on low patience and blood sugar.

It was hot up in the bedroom with clothes sprawled everywhere and my daughters threatening my clothing classifications (2T, 3T, 5T, 4T, winter, summer, stained, needs washing, needs mending, needs to go away because they never wear turtlenecks or scratchy pants anyway).

To add to the situation, my oldest is struggling with lactose intolerance and had horrible gas. That single piece of cheese at lunch seemed to follow me everywhere.

Did I mention I'm 22 weeks pregnant?

My love finally got home. I mentioned the mango salsa in the refrigerator needed to go since it was the same one my daughter had eaten the night before she threw it up in her sleep. I didn't want to think about it anymore and I certainly didn't want to smell it. As my husband helpfully volunteered to pour out said salsa into the garbage disposal, I said "I do NOT want to smell that." He proceeded to dump it, while I huffed outside for fresh air, which really was just hot, humid air.

Things went downhill from there. I'll spare the details. He said this and I took it that way. You know how it goes. And as I smeared spaghetti sauce on my paper thin pizza crust (that never did rise very much), I snapped, with a handful of cheese shaking in my fist, "Do you want me to throw mozarella in your face?!!"

Don't you hate when you end up there, that place that you now have to figure your way out of?  

I wish this story was from our early years of marriage, but you can see we're still a work in progress. Marriage for us has been a lot more like a rock tumbler than a merry-go-round. 

I like this from Tim Keller's book "The Meaning of Marriage":

"You put gems into the tumbler and they they are brought into constructive, creative contact with each other. They knock the rough edges off of each other until each gem is smooth and beautiful. But if you don't put a special compound into the tumbler with the gems, the stones will either bounce off of one another without any effects or may crack and shatter each other. The grinding compound in the gem tumbler is like God's grace in a marriage. Without the power of grace, truth and love can't be combined. Spouses either stay away from the truth--they 'bounce off each other'--or else they attack one another and they shatter." 

God has been so good and gracious to us, and His grace has made all the difference in our "rock tumbler" marriage. His grace allows us to see the truth about ourselves and our flaws, and still face each other with love. God is doing something beautiful in the mess of the two of us together. 

And If you're wondering how the lovely pizza night ended up, I apologized for losing my temper after a quiet dinner, and all was forgiven. And in that reconciliation, I saw one more glimpse of God's sweet grace poured out on me.

And I just had to share a picture of my anniversary gift (Lisa Leonard Designs--I love her beautiful work). By the way, it is only "well with my soul" because Jesus makes it so.