To Be Loved-John

Happy Friday,

How are you all doing today? I hope all is well in your world. Are you getting ready for Thanksgiving? I am. I’m super excited to have Tommy and Katie coming and my cousin Brian and his kiddos too. Should be a nice Turkey Day for sure. I also invited my neighbor, Marlene. She just lost her husband three months ago, so it’ll be nice to have her here also. I invited my Uncle Mike to join us, hope he will, but understand if he can’t. I just don’t want him spending the holiday alone.

I was thinking last night, how amazing it feels to be loved. John is always telling me how much he loves me and he often talks about how he’s going to spend the rest of his life getting me to see how much he loves me too. This morning it dawned on me. He loves me so much that he wants to spend the rest of his life showing me, telling me, and helping me to see his love. He must really love me to want to do that. It also dawned on me that, John is the answer to my prayers. All those years I prayed and prayed to be loved. I used to ask God to let me feel love just one day in my life and he’s given me the opportunity to feel loved every day by this man that is the true definition of unconditional love.

I’ve spent my whole life working at trying to get someone to love me. That someone was my husband at the time. I thought the more I did for him, the more I cooked, cleaned, and had his laundry just so, maybe he could tell me he loved me. I thought that if he didn’t have to ever lift a finger around the house, that he would tell me he loved me and I never understood that loving someone or someone loving you isn’t about what you do for them or buy them, it’s about feeling safe, knowing you can tell them anything and they’ll listen to you without judgment. Being loved and knowing you’re loved is being able to just be together without saying a word at the same time, it’s about being together and never shutting up. Love encompasses and entwines two lives together in a way that unites them, unlike any other relationship you have in life.

John is my gift from God. If I died tomorrow, I would die, feeling complete because now I know what it feels like to be truly loved by a man. I’m sure my ex loved me in his own way, but sadly, he was never taught how to love, and then when he joined the cult, any chance of him being able to express love was out the door. You see, in the JW Cult, men are superior to women and women have their place and must know their place. We are here to serve our men and make sure they are happy and taken care of. Women are to submit to the headship arrangement according to the cult.

It’s funny, the congregation will tell brothers (the men) to love their wives, and many do, but there’s this unspoken rule or whatever you want to call it where men are head of the home, they have the final say and they often tend to lord over their wives the fact that they are man, they are head and they are all that within the family.

I was actually okay with the whole headship thing, it was how I was raised and all I knew. I suppose my friend Jen was right, ignorance is bliss. Anyway, I would have kept on in my role as the lesser one, if only I would have felt loved. Not ever feeling loved, it’s a terrible feeling. To grow up in a house where I was reminded that if abortions would have been safe at the time of my conception, I would have been aborted, to being told that Mother had two families, me, and now her new family, then to marry a man that simply said thank you when I told him I loved him. I began to pray every night begging God to let me feel loved, just once. It’s taken me this long to realize, God not only gave me that gift, but he gave it to me in the most bountiful way.

I know John loves me, I’ve known it for a long while now, but I didn’t appreciate the gift of his love until I realized that his love is the answer to my prayers. God works in mysterious ways and I was lucky enough to have John come into my life and show me from the start how a man should treat a woman he loves.

I remember telling John early on in our relationship that I never got flowers from a man just because and within a few days, he bought me the most beautiful bouquet of red roses I’ve ever seen. There are times when I don’t feel well and he brings me something just to show me he’s thinking of me and to say I love you. John always thinks of the little details. John is the answer to my prayers, in more ways than I think I still realize.

John is the true example of what the loving God in the Bible wants from a man. When God says to love your wife as yourself, my John goes above and beyond that and I truly believe, that’s what our creator wants. You see, the Bible was written as a foundation or a guidebook for how to have a happy life, and it’s up to us to live accordingly and take the suggestions and perfect them in our own lives. Being raised in a cult, men were very overbearing towards their women, we become their property and in that process, we lose our identity, but that’s not what God wants, he wants us to have loving relationships, he wants us to be partners and be there for each other. We are compliments for each other and when one of us falls, the other is there to help pick up the pieces, and for the first time in my life, I know what that feels like, so let me say, thank you to my God for sending John into my life and thank you, John, for showing me the meaning of love.

I will love you, my dear John, forever and always, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together. You are my rock, my strength, and my better half. You help complete me and I am eternally grateful to you for having faith in me and giving me the gift to write again. I love you, John Foster.

Well, guys, I’ve gotta get to getting. I’ve got therapy in a little bit and I need to go get ready. Have a wonderful day, stay safe, enjoy your loved one, and don’t forget, Love Life++