It's Official

(image from hallmark.com)

I am now officially one of those people who cries at Hallmark films. Oh my am I slightly embarrassed to admit that. There was a film I have been meaning to watch for years now called The Magic of Ordinary Days. Thanks to a wonderful person who posted the whole thing on YouTube I was able to watch it in full, since I have not been able to find it elsewhere (every time we are at the store I check the Hallmark movie section). It stars Keri Russell and Skeet Ulrich and is AMAZING.

It's tag line is "One mistake changed the course of her life. One man changed the direction of her heart."

It's set in the 1940's during WWII and Keri Russell plays Livy, an educated woman who gets pregnant and is sent off to marry a farmer, Ray. He treats her phenomenally, and of course it ends happily.

This movie really spoke to me. My past is not as clean as I would have liked it to have been. And so when she asks Ray how he knows it's going to work (after telling him she isn't sure she deserves him), and his response is because he knows one day she will forgive herself.....well, I knew the feeling.

I know what it's like to feel ashamed of decisions I've made. And to feel unworthy of the love a good man is offering. I haven't been in the same situation, and if I had gotten pregnant out of wedlock I am pretty sure my parents would not have sent me off to marry a farmer. I am very blessed to know though that had I been in such situation, I am pretty sure Garret would have married me anyways. He has loved me for so long, and much stronger than I can fathom. I have felt unworthy of him before. It's hard to be loved so completely when you don't love yourself even close to that amount.

Garret is not the first love of my life, but he is the greatest. My biggest regret is that we weren't ready for one another when we were younger. He had to grow into the man he is today, and I had to be hurt to appreciate a man who would do anything to avoid hurting me. He fumbles, I fall from grace, but in the end we have one another. We are so far from perfect that it isn't even funny. We stumble and crawl our way back to one another more than we walk beside each other. But the great thing is that we try. We get up, humble ourselves, apologize and aim higher.

I know I've been talking more deeply this post and the last. But it's been put on my heart that I need to really look around and appreciate the good things in my life, and the greatest gift I have ever been given is a best friend and husband who loves me even when I feel unlovable. This movie was great. But what I have is greater. No script writer wrote it, but it was designed by God. And for that I am thankful daily.

I love this song by Marc Broussard, and it is one that G and I sing often. One of the lyrics is "Sometimes when I look back, I don't even know myself. It blows my mind to think that I've found grace in someone else. Baby your grace is something else." He's a fantastic artist, but I love this song more than some of his more popular ones.