By small and simple things...

So I continued to pray to love him. It was made more difficult by my desire to emulate our Savior's love for him when I didn't feel it. Or did I? I was very confused. I wanted to love him for I was certain our marriage had not been preserved just to end at some later time. I pondered what might be causing me such difficulty in loving him. Was it the betrayal? The deceit? The excommunication? The unwillingness and lack of desire to be back in the Church? Perhaps it was that he never really said he was sorry and how grateful he was that I didn't give up on us. Maybe it was all of these.
When you are struggling to love someone it is very difficult to refrain from lashing out, from criticizing, from withholding love. I wanted to make him see, to correct him...but isn't that just the kind of behavior that had contributed to this whole ordeal. I had learned that each of us needs to choose to love, to forgive, to overlook the little things that just don't really matter, to chose happiness from within. I needed to learn to love him no matter how he acted. I could choose happiness from within. I wanted, at times, to inflict pain on him so he would see the pain he put me through. But I knew that was wasted energy. It never heals a relationship...only makes it more dysfunctional. No one can ever really feel what we feel.
I started to think that at least in heaven he would see and then he'd be sad for my pain. Until I realized that once I am There, I won't even care about such matters. I won't need him to be contrite and beg for my forgiveness. I will love more perfectly There and I will see things in their proper and eternal perspective. It just won't matter. All that will matter Then is what I learned from my experiences...And that I helped him home. I don't think our Savior will spend all eternity getting satisfaction from our realization of how wrong we were and how right He was. And how much He suffered. He is grateful to have served and saved us.
I would cling to this view of heaven for sometime to see me through the difficult days ahead.
I would choose love. I would act "as if" until I could "be" in love with him again.
"For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more." 1 Corinthians 9:19
It is a choice to love, to serve, to forgive.