Revealing Grace

I'm going to throw this out there: loving someone is hard.  I know, epic new thought, right? Of course I always knew that love wasn't like the fairy tales, that prince charming didn't come and sweep you off your feet with a song and a ride into happily ever after. I knew that it was harder than the movies depicted, but I still kind of thought that real love would be entirely blissful and lovely and there would always be a twinkle in the eye and dancing in the kitchen (I do watch a lot of romcoms, let's be honest). It's just been over the last few months that I have learned the true nature about love and let me tell you, it is oh so different than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, loving someone is one of the most beautiful, challenging, rewarding, and humbling experiences of my life. I will always choose love, no matter how hard it is. To love is wonderful but to love is to be challenged, much more than I originally realized .  So here is what...

It was the quintessential Robert Frost moment. The fork in the road labeled two paths and the decision lay before us like an open hand. There wasn't danger in one or the other, and neither had terrible consequences, but the first footstep would hold the answer.                                              <---- More Difficult                Easy -----> I had been battling sickness all week so the sensible answer was obviously the "easy" path, but with one look at each other my brother and I knew what we had chosen. We took our steps past the "more difficult" sign with confidence and moved toward the goal of the lakes promised above. The signs weren't lying with their descriptions of ease and difficulty. The path we chose included steep runs of slippery rocks that had to be climbed in the fashion of a monkey, on all four...