Happy Sunday! My random story today is about saying goodbye to mashed potatoes!

For a long time, I thought love meant affirmation. I thought it was confirmation. I thought love was someone saying “You’re right” when I was wrong or “You’re valid” when I was hurting. But through nearly two decades of marriage, I’ve learned that love is something much deeper.

My husband, Danny, has loved me and walked with me for 18 years. Let me be honest, there have been times when I desperately wanted affirmation or confirmation. I wanted him to agree with me, to side with me, to make me feel immediately justified. But that’s not what he gave me. Instead, he gave me love, sometimes tough love, sometimes grace. He’s also had to learn the balance between the two.

Early on, I often became offended when his love didn’t look like what I wanted in the moment. But Danny has this way of circling back. Even when I didn’t understand right away, he would patiently return to the conversation, help me see it differently, and remind me that his love wasn’t about winning or losing it was about choosing me, choosing us, and choosing growth.

One of our funniest (but also hardest) examples of this came in the form of steak and potatoes.

I didn’t grow up grilling steaks. Steak was a rare luxury in my childhood. I remembered one of my uncles making steak with mashed potatoes, and it was my favorite meal. So, in the early years of our marriage, I decided I wanted to recreate it for Danny.

He came home from work one evening, fired up the grill, and went to sit on the back porch. Meanwhile, after taking the steak out to be cooked, I happily began peeling potatoes in the kitchen. He walked back through the sliding door, saw me at the counter, and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Making mashed potatoes,” I said proudly.

That’s when he gently (but firmly) informed me that the potatoes needed to be prepared and cooked before putting the steak on the grill. I hadn’t known. I was just excited to make the meal I had loved as a child. But when he told me there was no way they would be ready in time if I cook them, my feelings were crushed.

I insisted I still wanted to make them. He insisted cold steak is never as good as hot steak. Suddenly, what started as a meal of my dreams turned into a battle 😂🫣. To be completely honest, in that moment, I felt so misunderstood, so unheard, that it almost felt like a deal-breaker. We laugh about it now, but that night I remember thinking: Are we really going to end our marriage over mashed potatoes?

We didn’t have mashed potatoes that night. But I learned something far more important: preparation matters. Timing matters and so does grace.

Love is not affirmation or confirmation because those things, while comforting, don’t change us. They make us feel good in the moment, but they don’t shape us. Love does.

Love is pursuit, not agreement. It chases us down even when we want to run, and it refuses to abandon us when we get it wrong. Love is presence, not permission. It sits with us in the ashes, but it also whispers, “There’s more ahead.” Love is formation, not flattery. It doesn’t just tell us what we want to hear, it helps us become who we’re meant to be.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: Love is the choice to seek another’s good with truth and sacrifice, not simply their comfort.

Sometimes that looks like tough love, spoken with honesty that stings but saves. Other times it looks like grace, spoken with gentleness that heals and restores. Danny has had to learn the grace part, and I’ve had to learn that love doesn’t always feel good in the moment but it bears fruit in the long run.

Eighteen years later, I can say this: love is not always what I wanted, but it has always been what I needed and sometimes, it’s even better than steak and potatoes.

Danny Ellison I love you!