What Do I Believe I Deserve?

And what am I teaching the people I love to believe they deserve?

Love has been in the air lately. I've had the joy of attending a couple of weddings, and every wedding has a way of making me thoughtful. There is something beautiful about watching two people stand before the people they love and promise to choose one another—not just on that day, but every ordinary Tuesday and every difficult season still to come.

Whether those promises are made before God or simply before one another, they carry extraordinary hope.

One part of traditional wedding vows has stayed with me.

When I hear words about the husband leading the home and the wife submitting to him, I find myself reflecting on what those words might mean today.

I've come to believe that leadership isn't domination.

It's responsibility.

It's humility.

It's serving the people entrusted to your care.

And submission, at its healthiest, isn't silence or the loss of one's voice.

It's the willingness of both people to lay down pride for the good of the relationship.

Perhaps that is what every lasting partnership asks of us.

Not power.

Not control.

But mutual surrender.

Because marriage—like every meaningful relationship—is certain to test us.

No two imperfect people can share a life without occasionally disappointing one another. We all make mistakes. We all speak too quickly sometimes. We all fail to be the person we hoped we would be.

That is why grace matters.

Forgiveness matters.

Humility matters.

Healthy love leaves room for people to apologize, to grow, and to become better than they were yesterday.

But another question has quietly settled into my heart.

Where is the line?

What happens when the failure isn't occasional?

When trust isn't broken once, but over and over again?

At what point does forgiveness stop helping a relationship heal and begin asking one person to quietly disappear?

I've come to believe that forgiveness and reconciliation are two entirely different things.

Forgiveness is something we do within ourselves.

It releases bitterness.

It loosens resentment's grip.

It frees us from carrying someone else's choices forever.

Reconciliation, however, belongs to two people.

It requires honesty.

Repentance.

Transparency.

Accountability.

Consistency.

Trust isn't rebuilt because someone says, "I'm sorry."

Trust is rebuilt because someone lives differently.

As I've reflected on all of this, I've realized my thoughts have become less about marriage and more about legacy.

Children are always learning what love looks like.

Not from sermons.

From kitchens.

From bedrooms.

From arguments.

From apologies.

From laughter.

From silence.

From what stays hidden.

From what gets tolerated.

Long before they understand wedding vows, they're quietly writing their own.

Sometimes I think we're always teaching the people who love us three things:

What love is.

What love is not.

And what they themselves are worth.

Those lessons rarely come from what we say.

They come from what we live.

That is why I try to be very careful about judging anyone's decisions.

Leaving a relationship is rarely simple.

Fear complicates it.

Finances complicate it.

Children complicate it.

Faith complicates it.

Hope complicates it.

Love itself complicates it.

Every story carries details invisible to everyone standing outside it.

I don't judge those who stay.

I don't judge those who leave.

I simply know that every heart is carrying a story the rest of us cannot fully see.

I do believe love asks both people to surrender something.

Pride.

Selfishness.

The need to always be right.

The temptation to keep score.

What I don't believe love asks us to surrender is our dignity.

Our safety.

Or our identity.

Those aren't sacrifices that strengthen a relationship.

They're sacrifices that slowly erase a person.

Sometimes I imagine one of my grandchildren, many years from now, sitting across from me and asking,

"Honey, should I stay with someone who keeps betraying me because my vows said to forgive?"

I hope my answer would be gentle.

I would tell them that forgiveness is one of the most beautiful things a heart can do.

That bitterness is far too heavy to carry through life.

But I would also tell them something equally important.

Forgiveness and self-respect can exist together.

Grace and healthy boundaries are not enemies.

Loving someone else should never require abandoning yourself.

A healthy relationship is never built on one person carrying all the weight while the other repeatedly breaks the promises that made the partnership possible in the first place.

Perhaps the greatest promise we can make isn't simply to love another person.

Perhaps it's to build a life where love and respect always walk hand in hand.

This isn't something I write from a place of judgment.

I've stayed too long before.

I've watched people I love stay too long before.

I understand fear.

I understand hope.

I understand believing that if we just love someone a little better, perhaps tomorrow will finally be different.

Fear has an incredible way of convincing us that staying is the safest option.

But I've learned something about fear.

Fear makes a wonderful messenger.

It can warn us.

It can slow us down.

It can prepare us to do something brave.

But it rarely makes a wise place to live.

Relationships are meant to require effort.

They were never meant to require constant emotional survival.

There is a profound difference between growing together and merely enduring one another.

One feels like building a home.

The other feels like repairing storm damage every single day.

The older I get, the more I realize this conversation isn't really about wedding vows at all.

It's about belief.

Believing that forgiveness can exist without abandoning ourselves.

Believing that boundaries can be loving.

Believing that courage sometimes looks like staying and fighting for a relationship—and sometimes it looks like walking away from one.

Believing that every single day we have another opportunity to choose differently than we did yesterday.

That, perhaps, is one of the greatest gifts of being human.

We are wonderfully capable of learning.

Growing.

Changing.

Becoming.

Every morning we wake up with another vote to cast.

Another opportunity to decide what we believe.

What we will pursue.

What we will accept.

And who we are still becoming.

People often live as though yesterday has already cast the deciding vote on tomorrow.

I don't believe that's how life works.

The past shapes us.

It teaches us.

Sometimes it wounds us.

Sometimes it strengthens us.

But it doesn't get the final vote.

We do.

Every single morning.

Perhaps the healthiest relationships don't ask us to become less of ourselves.

They inspire us to become more fully ourselves—together.

And perhaps that's the greatest legacy any of us can leave.

Not perfection.

Not a flawless marriage.

Not a perfect family.

But the quiet courage to keep becoming.

Honey Note 🍯

Never let someone else's choices convince you to think less of your own worth.

Forgive generously.

Love wholeheartedly.

Offer grace freely.

Set boundaries courageously.

And never stop believing that your life can become even more beautiful than it is today.

The world doesn't need a smaller version of you.

It needs the truest one.

Trust that quiet voice inside you that whispers,

"Keep going."

It has been leading people toward hope, healing, and extraordinary new beginnings for generations.

If you listen closely enough, I think it will lead you there too.

With all my love,

Honey 🐝

Until next time…

May you have the wisdom to recognize what deserves another chance, the courage to release what no longer serves you, and the faith to believe that your best chapters have not yet been written.

Keep choosing curiosity over certainty.

Hope over fear.

Grace over bitterness.

And always…

Keep becoming.