celebrating milestones

Yesterday was our 2 1/2 year wedding anniversary. I of course only knew this when I saw it on Phil's calender. We've both struggled with understanding and speaking one anothers "love language", and there are times when one of us will have to say "please love me in a way that I can feel loved". I know many couples struggle with that, and getting married after knowing each other 5 months didn't really help. But Phil remembers things like 1/2 anniversaries, which I find romantic! So yesterday I came home to a beautiful orchid, taken out to sushi, and rounded out the night with foot massages at a Chinese-reflexology foot bar (and I highly recommend getting one! $25 for an hour foot massage). I want to encourage you to celebrate milestones in your life, especially in your marriage; if not for you then for your spouse. We should strive to do things daily that encourage our loved ones and affirm our love for them. I'm certainly not good at doing this, and I'm often humbled by how Phil will show his love for me when I feel unlovable. Someone once explained it to me as 'bringing our spouses to glory'; we don't love on them because they did it first or we want it back, we love on them because they deserve it.
Phil and I have a theme Bible verse for our marriage, which is "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). It's engraved in our wedding rings and framed in our home, and I have to remember daily that the "He" and "Him" is Christ, and its truly in Him alone that Phil and I will have a wonderful marriage, and through Him that we'll learn to love each other.
A book that helped me understand my husband better, as well as my role being his wife, is "Love and War" by John and Stasi Eldridge. Phil isn't much of a reader (says he read enough in school), but he read most of it and it has taught us much about each other, and I think it will benefit you, too. You can read it when you need a break from "Renting Lacy"... remember that one?