Tired of Being Tired

Tired of being tired...

Those were the words that jumped out at me at the Oremus prayer study we did at our Young Adult meeting tonight.  Lack of prayer takes sense of direction and purpose out of life. We just go through the motions and basically wonder... what is it all for?

I am so tired of being tired. It's not about getting enough hours of sleep, although I'd appreciate a couple extra. It's not about exercising or eating right, as I've been working on that mostly successfully...

It's about prayer!

I didn't realize that was the answer until tonight.

I've been so stressed, with so much to do, so much on my plate, so many battles I'm fighting with various stressful life situations, and trying to do it all just right, that I've let my prayer life slide once again.

The kids and I went to a Holy Hour this afternoon and it took me the full hour to get through one Rosary because my prayer looked like this...

"Hail Mary... STOP THAT, DAMIEN.... full of grace... DON'T TOUCH THAT DEAD BUG.... the Lord is with you... I TOLD YOU TO GO POTTY BEFORE WE CAME! Where was I? Sigh. Hail Mary...."

Yep. Literally.

In fact, the woman who showed up after me said, "You were counting down the minutes weren't you?"

Yes. Yes, I was.

Prayer has been chaotic, but it was so good to be reminded tonight that God wants me. He wants me. He desires me. No one desires or wants me like the Lord. No selfish reasons, no agenda, nothing He needs from me. He just wants me.

That set my anxious heart at peace.

That reminder helped me to see even where I have unrealistic expectations on others to want me like He wants me. To want me just because I am me and not because I'm needed... I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of the constant whining in this house and the needs of my family day to day and the repetitive chores and work that have to be done and bills that have to be paid. I know that as I'm saying this it sounds selfish. I don't shirk my vocation as wife and mother, but..... Sometimes I just want to pack up the family and start a little tribe somewhere in the woods!

I'm really excited to be working on my prayer life. I definitely have a lot of work to do in that area. My prayer life is chaos. My life is chaos. I need the peace that stems from that intimate relationship with God.

I'm ready to accept His invitation... I just forgot about it in my stack of bills and junk mail...

My Profession of Faith

One day I asked David, my husband,  "Why do we have to say the Creed during the Rosary?"

"Because Mary told us to, duh," he responded.

"I know, but it's not really a prayer. It seems kind of pointless to have to say it."

"Well... then... you're a heretic."


Hahaha ... these are the conversations that go on in our house.


I really was puzzled by this, but in reading about the martyrdom that is going on all over the world especially as ISIS has brought this persecution to light, I wondered....

If I was kneeling before a camera with a masked man holding a knife to my neck and demanding that I convert to Islam, would I be able to holdfast to my Catholic faith?

I remember Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. who both had children they would be leaving behind. When pressured by her father to reconsider her Christian faith, Perpetua said, "See that pot over there? Can it be called by any other name than what it is? Neither can I call myself by any other name than what I am -- a Christian."

I think of my own children. What if they had to watch me die? Could I still profess my faith?

It hit me.. this is why we pray the creed. We practice verbalizing our beliefs so hopefully they become ingrained in us that we should be able to state our belief when put to the test.

The Creed, in the Mass, is called the "Profession of Faith." We literally profess what we believe....

My profession of faith as I recite the creed should be so ingrained in my heart, in my mind, and in my life, that there is no separating the two - even unto death. I would pray that I would have the courage and trust in the Lord that He is bigger than masked men with knives. He is more powerful than any sort of persecution, and He is infinitely more merciful than any would-be captor.

I grieve over all of our brothers and sisters who have been martyred, but I know that they are caught up in the love of the Lord now, and they are praying for us. (See a great homily on Christian persecution in my previous blogpost. )

Next time I won't be so flippant about reciting the Creed.

I will pray it boldly and in unison with our fellow Catholics around the world.

We practice the profession of faith. We pray it. Because if we were ever put to the test and asked what we believe... we could, in confidence and courage say, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty..."

"No Religion Can Transform Evil into Good" (Guest Post by Fr. Terrance Klein)

This Homily was given by the Associate Pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City, Kansas this weekend, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I was very moved by the message and asked Fr. Terrance Klein to send it to me so that I could share with you all. I bolded the parts that hit home for me. It is important to remember you and I are being persecuted - we don't feel ill effects at the moment, but the mere fact that our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering and dying because they share our faith is a persecution we should feel keenly in our hearts. Please, take action. Pray and support Catholic Relief Services. See my previous blog for how you can help. 

Peace - Noelle

THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

Fr. Terrance Klein

Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe

09.14.2014

Numbers 21: 4b-9   Philippians 2: 6-11   John 3: 13-17

About one third of the world’s population is Christian.  Each year, more than twenty-five million people are baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And each year, about one hundred thousand Christians are martyred, coming to share fully in the death of Christ.

There has never been a century since Christ in which Christians did not give their lives for the faith.  From the beginning they were acknowledged as martyrs, those whose witness to Christ was writ in blood.  But, whether one considers numbers or percentages, put bluntly, as John Allen does in his 2013 The Global War on Christians, we are “today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet” 

Allen’s book easily marshals examples.  “The evangelical group Open Doors, devoted to monitoring anti-Christian persecution, estimates that one hundred million Christians worldwide presently face interrogation, arrest, torture, or even death because of their religious convictions.”  

For example, in 2008, in northeastern India “a series of riots ended with as many as five hundred Christians killed, many hacked to death by machete-wielding Hindu radicals, thousands more were injured; and at least fifty thousand were left homeless.”  

In Nigeria the militant Islamic group Boko Haram “is held responsible for almost three thousand deaths.”  Like its counterpart in Egypt, Christians and their churches are targeted.  

In North Korea “roughly a quarter of the country’s two hundred thousand to four hundred thousand Christians are believed to be living in forced labor camps because of their refusal to join the national cult around founder Kim Il Sung…Some three hundred thousand Christians in North Korea have simply disappeared and are presumed to be dead.”

Before the first Gulf War, more than a million and a half Iraqis were Christians, whose origins dated to the age of the apostles.  A year ago, after relentless bombings and unrestrained persecution, the number of them in Iraq was close to one hundred thousand.  That was before the rise of ISIS and its declaration that there is nothing to give Christians “but the sword.”  This summer, in Mosul, Christians, including children, have been beheaded, even crucified. 

When unprecedented numbers of Christians are being murdered, what does it mean to celebrate—this year during our Sunday liturgies—the Exaltation of the Cross?  The Church Father Tertullian said that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” but this seed should never be blithely scattered. Even as the Church celebrates her most faithful witnesses, she must also mourn their deaths.  

The Church exists to midwife the Kingdom of God, which is one of peace and justice.  She cannot ignore the injustice, the violence, perpetrated against her own people.  The meaning of this feast cannot be that it is good for men and women to die violently for the faith because, in doing so, they imitate Christ.  To exult the cross is not to celebrate violence, neither that inflicted upon Jesus nor upon his followers.

One cannot suggest that what happened on Calvary, two millennia ago, cancels the contemporary evil perpetrated against Christians, or anyone else.  The meaning of the cross is not that violence has been transformed into something that we proclaim—paradoxically, with an eye toward the world to come—as good.  That would make the cross of Christ an enemy of men and women, because what is evil—and his crucifixion surely was—cannot be baptized by blather into something good.

If the cross were simply a human horror, made inspirational by centuries of whitewashing piety, then to exult Calvary would be to perpetrate the very evil cited by many critics of religion.  It would be akin to that perversion of authentic Islam, which tells the fanatically violent that Paradise awaits them.  

The cross cancels our calculations. From the earth, looking up at its beams, at his bloodied, outstretched arms, it defies sense.  Those who stood beneath the cross saw it as the death of all their hopes, the terrible judgment of God upon the wickedness of earth.  

Only God can comprehend the cross, which is to say that no human dares to assign its meaning.  To call the cross the great mystery of God is to rebuke every human effort to domesticate the divine.  The death of Jesus upon the cross is not a past event that makes the present palatable for the persecuted.  

No, we must see the cross as the eternal, the standing-outside-of-time, the ever ancient and ever new decision of God, which is to enter into the abasement of sin and its consequent suffering.  Christians don’t go to their violent deaths because Christ went to Calvary.  Christ embraces the wood of the cross because the innocent died before him, died after him, continue to die.  

The cross draws all of human history—past, present, and future—into those outstretched arms.  The will of God—Father, Son, and Spirit—is revealed there.  The meaning of history is curiously carved into its wood.  

He emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross (Phil 2: 7-8).

No religion can transform evil into good.  Evil is absolute inanity, the complete absence of the good.  You cannot directly choose to do evil to accomplish the good.  Those who try only diminish the good, in themselves and the world.  

You can suffer evil, like the martyrs, or resist it, like those who fight to restrain it.  Martyrs are not passive, and soldiers are not evil.  They are righteous in resisting.  But there is a reason that the cross of Christ belongs on ambulances and not at the head of armies.  Christ chooses to suffer the cross.  Note the present tense of the verb.  Christ chooses.  It will never enter the past tense until the world, its sin and suffering, is gathered to him.

╬╬╬

My Daughter is Beautiful

Tell her she's beautiful every day. 

Don't tell her she's beautiful. 

Be honest with her. 

Compliment her mind, not her body. 

Don't talk about her body at all. 

Tell her she looks good even if she doesn't. 

AH!!  PLEASE!! SOMEONE STOP THE MADNESS!!!! 

First off, I have always struggled with my self-image. This is me, self-proclaimed original "Ugly Betty"... I think I was maybe around fourteen years old. 

I had bad acne, was overweight (I weighed as much as a teenager as I did pregnant with my third child...), braces, headgear, etc. The complete antithesis of cultural, feminine beauty. 

I wasn't pretty. No one told me I was pretty, but no one said I was ugly either, aside from one nasty kid at a pool a few years prior to this picture being taken. 

My mom told me that God doesn't make junk. That stuck with me.

Other than that no one made a big deal about how I looked, one way or the other. 

Consequently, my own self-talk, in my mind, was validated. 

"I'm ugly."

Fast forward. 

This is my daughter after a Father/Daughter dance. 

She is beautiful. 

I will always tell her that she is beautiful. 

I know the trend right now is to not talk to your daughter at all about her physical appearance, but rather to compliment her mind and heart and soul. 

I get that. 

But she wants to know she is beautiful. It is innate in her. Even when she was really little, she would ask me to put a dress on her, or she would grab one of my dresses and say, "Am I pwetty, mama?" 

"Yes, honey. You are beautiful." 

When I tell her she is beautiful, I want her to know that I say that from a place of deep love for her. When she hears someone else say she is beautiful, she will be able to recognize the difference between someone who says it out of love, and someone who says it without love - someone who wants to use her. 

She will know that she is beautiful, not sexy. 

She will know that she is beautiful because she is fearfully and wonderfully made, knit in her mother's womb, beloved, His beautiful one. (All Scripture references)

Of course, she is not limited by physical beauty. We affirm her for being kind, compassionate, brave, intelligent, prayerful, and helpful. But all of those things make her beautiful. 

To only affirm her heart, mind, and soul while rejecting her body as unimportant to who she is is really the opposite of anything holy - if the body were bad and not worth a second thought, it wouldn't have been redeemed on the cross. If the body were bad, it wouldn't be resurrected on the last day. 

I believe I should instead, teach her to love herself as a whole person. Society places so much emphasis on sex appeal, not beauty. We have to be careful when we are fighting one, to not fight the other. When she starts to change or gains a few pounds, or needs braces, etc, I want her to know she is beautiful because she is a child of God and His love for her makes her beautiful and that is unchanging beauty. 

I hope to teach her that her most attractive quality is her soul, and that holiness is the most beautiful thing in the world. 

I want to teach her that the more she is full of love, the more beautiful she is. 

They will see her beauty. Not just physical beauty, but the love of Christ radiating through her, spilling over to everyone around her. 

So, I say without reservation....

My daughter is beautiful. 

Top Ten Catholic Online Dating Suggestions

I just got home from a wonderful experience speaking and leading music at the Ave Maria Singles Retreat. It was truly an inspired and fantastic time getting to know so many unique, professional, and FUN people!

Many of you may know that David and I met via AveMariaSingles.com. David's first message said: So I can see by your profile that you can't cook... so I guess if it works out between us, we'll probably starve.

I didn't immediately respond to his message because he lived in Massachusetts and I was living in Michigan at the time, but something kept drawing me back to his profile -- we had so much in common -- so I decided.. what the heck... I'll shoot him a message. I was hooked. He was funny, flirty, holy. After a week, he called me. After two months of talking for hours every day, he came to visit. After seven months worth of visits, he came to live in Michigan. After seven months of living across the street from one another he proposed! Six months later, we married! 

David proposed to me during Adoration. He said, "I want to be a better man for you. I want to lead you to Heaven. Will you marry me?" Of course, I said, "YES!"

 This is when David messed up my name during our vows, calling me "Elena Noelle" instead of "Noelle Elena" and we could not stop laughing. 

 Our first dance was to "Earth Angel" and then "Angel" by Shaggy -- thanks to John Angotti for his amazing music at our reception, and to Podesta Imaging for photo cred! 

 

Almost five years later, we have three beautiful children ages (almost) 4, 2, and 1! 

________________________________________________

Now, a few things we have learned and some things that I learned at the retreat I attended this weekend. (If you've been out of the dating scene for awhile or just aren't sure what you are looking for in a man or woman, I recommend a singles retreat simply for the practice of meeting people and conversing. I almost felt like a social butterfly because it was so much fun to sit and chat with a bunch of people who were just as interested in meeting you as you were in getting to know them!) 

I've narrowed my dating advice, or really more like.. suggestions, to ten things:

1) Don't mass message or email a bunch of people. 

A generic email is less interesting than a personalized email addressed specifically to you. It shows personal interest, not desperation to find someone -- anyone. It also helps you to stick to your standards and not settle for just the person quickest to respond. I received many generic emails that asked questions that really I had already answered in my profile - so I could tell they hadn't read my profile!

2) Don't get too personal right away. 

One person I had met basically stated in his profile that he was once a womanizer or drunkard but now had seen the light. Eh... that's a bit too personal. Immediately, I jumped to being skeptical of this person's character. Someone else may have interpreted it as simply being honest and forthright, but if we let people see our deepest personal information right away, it can also take the fun out of getting to know someone and building an intimate relationship with that person. There are some things that everyone can know... like what kinds of sports we like to watch or what we like to eat, but then there are some things that should be left for our intimate, close friends and relationships like our deepest hope and dreams. 

3) Don't wait too long to meet. 

David and I really had a pretty short courtship compared to some of our other friends. We married about two years from our first meeting. Before we met, we had spent about two months talking on the phone to one another for hours -- literally hours -- every day! We had developed a relationship with one another over the phone and had an idea of what the other person was like, but when we first met, it was like we had to start all over again! The first day we met was really awkward! We just kind of stared at each other, because we realized that the comfort we had developed on the phone now had to develop in person and that the relationship was in many ways starting from scratch.  We had to see if we had chemistry together, if we could work with one another's quirks, and even if we could play music together! If we had waited longer, it would have been harder to use our rational thinking to determine that this relationship was really something we wanted to continue, because we would have been in love with the fantasy person with whom we had been communicating over the phone. 

4) Men, pursue!

There were some wonderful men and women on the Ave Maria Singles retreat and I couldn't believe they were single! Fabulous, intelligent, professional, attractive men and women who are hoping and praying for their future spouses. One of the things I LOVED about David was he was the first guy that really pursued me and initiated in our relationship. He called. I never had to. He emailed. He held the door. He paid for dates. He came up with dates. He asserted himself in crowds and introduced himself. He asked me to dance (even though we are horrible, horrible dancers). He asked me to pray with him. I loved that. All of this made me feel like I could settle into my role as woman and let him take care of me. There was a wonderful security in his pursuit. 

5) Women, be kind! 

At the Ave Maria Singles retreat, a few men told me that they would like to pursue women, but they are anxious because women have been cruel to them in the past. That broke my heart. Women... we don't need to be cruel. A simple "I'm flattered, but I'm sorry, no, thank you, I'm not interested in dating you at this time" should suffice. Responding any other way is not only hurtful to the men who try to find the courage to ask us out, but it is also extremely unbecoming to who we are as women. 

6) Pray together

When I first suggested reciting a prayer that I had found a couple weeks into our hourly phone calls, David told me that he wasn't sure if by praying together we would create a level of intimacy that we weren't ready for yet. He called me back shortly after consulting a fantastic spiritual advisor of his and said, "I was so crazy! If this is or isn't going to go anywhere, the Lord needs to be part of this! Let's pray!" Praying doesn't mean that the relationship is going to magically work out, but it does mean an openness to the Lord's will and desiring the relationship be centered on Christ. When we are centered on Christ, we can love one another the way Christ loves - beyond the feelings and into loving one another in spite of and despite of our flaws. 

7) Vocation is a calling but love is a choice. 

You may be called to marriage, but you are free to choose who you will enter that Covenant with -- and hopefully it will be a great choice! Love is a choice -- it is a decision, not a feeling. When we are in a relationship that isn't good for us, we say it is hard to walk away because we are in love with that person. The distinction is: We can choose to love someone or not to love someone, while we still may have feelings, attachment, and attraction to that person. This is important to note, because when the romantic feelings are gone during the day to day grind, after having kids, big arguments over petty things, big arguments over bigger things... we can still freely choose to love that person, and that makes our love and that relationship all the more meaningful due to our exercise of free will to love even when we or our significant other is being unlovable and it is sacrificial in nature! 

8) Be open to relocation.

My friend Rose Ferguson, President of Ave Maria Trips  made an intriguing observation... People who sign up for AveMariaSingles.com  choose to do so because they haven't met anyone they want to date in their current social circles, but they sometimes say they they are unwilling to relocate. This could be a potential problem if a relationship is built and neither person wants to move. The relationship then enters a standstill and "If you really loved me, you'd move" becomes the modus operandi and, in a way, a very real truth. If love is sacrificial and neither person is willing to budge on moving, then is it really love? I don't know... that would definitely need some major discerning!! David and I, once the relationship was established after meeting in person, were both open to moving. We had to trust, though, that the Lord would take care of us and we kept Him as the center so that we could have peace about whatever decision was made. David ultimately moved to Michigan simply because that's where a door opened. If he didn't find a job, I would have looked for jobs in his neck of the woods. 

9) Romance is amazing over long distance relationships, but takes work. 

Butterflies. All I ever had throughout the whole time David and I were dating was butterflies! He bought me flowers, earrings, made postcards with little drawings of us, and sent me at least one thoughtful text everyday. We played Scrabble online together and corresponded via snail mail, too! We worked hard to maintain our long distance relationship. We saved money for travel. We took pictures and printed them out and FRAMED them! I still have all the little notes and photos we shared during our time of long distance dating. We let the other person know they were always on our mind, hearts, and in our prayers! This is so, so important, because especially when you are not face to face, it would be easy for the other person to feel neglected or unloved by an absence of note or phone call. We had to build trust also - that the other person isn't secretly dating someone on the side - so we made sure to let the other know what we were doing, where we were, and who we were hanging out with. We called each other on typical "date" nights like Friday and Saturday just to let the other person know that they were our date for the evening despite the long distance!

David made this for me and sent it via snail mail. It says, "I hope that someday the distance between us will disappear forever."

10) Patience but Prudence

Meeting people online takes a lot of patience. Often, you can tell by the first or second date if someone is right for you or not, but when you meet online, that process can take a bit longer. There may be chemistry online, but not in person. The person may sound one way over their profile, but not live up to that reality in person. They may say they love working out, for example, but maybe they enjoy working out but never actually do it! They may say they love children, but never indicate that they'd rather not have any of their own. The list can go on. If you feel the Lord has called you to pursue finding someone online, don't expect the first contact to go anywhere. I and many people I know who have dabbled in the online dating site world have had many bad dates/bad communications, but the point is that the Lord will lead you through those experiences to refine yourself, your interaction with others, and help you see what you do and do not want in a spouse! 

Make sure, too, that you are ready for a serious relationship. Do you have past sins that need to be confessed? Do you have serious debt that you would bring into a relationship? Do you have unresolved issues with previous relationships or relationship experiences? Do you carry around bitterness and hatred towards an ex that will affect your relationship with someone new? Do you need to live life on your own for awhile, find a good job, get an education first? Do you need to work on your relationship with the Lord first? Many of those issues applied to me! When I was praying about my future spouse, the Lord told me, "You're not ready yet." When David was praying about his future spouse, the Lord told him, "She's not ready yet." 

Be patient, but be prudent in your pursuit of a spouse. 

May the Lord come first in your life! Smile more, pray more, heal, and forgive so you can love more! 

God bless!

Many prayers for all of your vocations!! 

He IS Loving You Through This

"I Praise You for I am Wonderfully Made"

This is my most requested talk. The story of my testimony from cutting and suicidal thoughts because of my low self-esteem... to national speaking and music ministry stemming from a moment in time where I realized God's incredible, amazing, awesome, inexhaustible love for me. 

See... I used to cut because I hated myself. I hated that God didn't make me beautiful.  It's true. By all societal and physical standards, I was not beautiful. I was overweight, had braces/crooked teeth, dressed sloppily (in part because I hated my appearance anyway), had bad acne, etc. I felt my whole life revolved around my being ugly. I was shy. I was jealous of my younger siblings and the attention they got - I'm the oldest - and I didn't have really any close friends. 

I used to cut, because I used to hurt. 

That emotional pain was a struggle. I stayed up late and I slept late. I napped after lunch. I was lazy. I over ate. I just didn't care about life and didn't feel like I had a purpose in this life. 

I attended a retreat when I was about fifteen that changed nothing yet changed everything. In this retreat Doug Barry from Radix did a one man Passion Play where he described and acted out the Passion. He described every graphic, bloody detail of the death of our Lord in a way that I had never really heard or even understood before. I never knew the pain and humiliation He went through for me. More than that, I never knew the desperation He felt for my soul. 

Hearing this for the first time, and experiencing worship in Adoration for the first time, rocked me to the core. It was undeniable that my Savior loves me. 

And that is enough. 

That was enough for me to stop cutting and to start healing and loving God, loving myself, and loving others. 

I didn't change right away. Some things changed pretty slowly - like getting my braces off! - and some things didn't change - like battling insecurity, but I am worlds away from the person I used to be, because I've learned to turn to the Lord in these difficult moments where I am struggling to love others, myself, or even Him. 

This past year has been extremely difficult, but I know I can't complain too much. So many people have it harder than I do. We have, however, been very blessed in spite of the challenges. 

Still... some days, it was hard to get out of bed. Not because I was depressed, but because I knew the day was full of many difficult things to do and many things that I felt I just couldn't handle. I didn't want to face the pile of things that had to be done. 

One moment. 

One moment, one moment with Christ changed my life. 

One moment is powerful!!!!! It is a point in time which can never be repeated. 

During these past few weeks, months... through every hurdle I faced, my marriage faced, or my family faced.. I just took one moment to say, "Help me Jesus. I trust You."

Even if I struggled with the words... 

And I got out of bed. 

Those times when we feel we can't face the day. It starts with taking a moment - just one moment - to ask for help. We can't stop there... we have to get up. Take that first step out of bed, out of the boat, out of the house, wherever...

We have to keep going. 

God will provide what we need and He WILL love us through each moment of the day. That love is our fire and our fuel! 

My instinct even now is not always to turn to God during a difficult time... first I need to call someone, y'all! 

I need to talk all about it and ask for advice. My husband is great at asking me, "Did you pray about this?" That sometimes makes me angry. :) But it's true... praying - really praying, not laying it all out there, talking the whole time, thinking the whole time, and coming away from "prayer" with just as much turmoil in my heart...but really praying. Just saying, "Lord, You know what I need." And listen. Surrender. 

Sometimes I imagine sitting at Jesus' feet and laying down, physically, each person or intention or worry or fear that I have at His feet. There is freedom. 

You know, though, one of the most awesome things is God isn't like that annoying boyfriend that you constantly have to call or text or you never hear from them... (Not that I have one of those anymore! )... He is just as eager to communicate with you as you are with Him. He pursues you. He pursues me. You don't have to believe me. He proved it before you even existed. 

Anyway... I really felt inspired to write this tonight. If you know someone who is hurting and needs a little encouragement, please share this blog or your own faith story!

I pray that the eyes that these words are meant for may experience the amazing love of God and come to know Him more deeply -- not out of religious obligation, but out of the desire for the relationship that will change your life forever. :)

Love. :)