If I can tell you one thing I've learned about being married is that it is without a doubt the most wonderful, confusing, thrilling, frustrating, fulfilling, perfect, imperfect, maddening, adventure you can imagine.
I've been BLESSED to find someone who I know loves me despite my flaws. But, it isn't always the fairy tale that we imagine married life to be. In the movies, the newlyweds have an adorable apartment and a cat and they can't keep their hands off of each other. In real life, the newlyweds (in our case) had an infant, and a cat, bills out the wa-zoo, and life was quickly rearing its sometimes ugly head.
Please do not take from that, that I would trade any of it. I wouldn't. My husband and my son are my whole life. To me, they are perfect. I love them more than I can even attempt to put into words for you here. My point is, that marriage can be hard.
Last week at church, the sermon was about marriage and I've been thinking about it a lot. Thinking about what I understand about marriage and what the Bible says about it. I'd heard before that love is a choice, not a feeling. It made sense, but the more I thought about it after I heard it at church, the more it really sank in. I really stopped and thought about what it meant to make the choice to love someone for the rest of your life. The choice I made when I married Blaine. The choice I make every single day when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep.
There are days when we argue and I know in that moment, we really do not like each other. But then I look at him and I think of what my life would be like if he weren't there for me to disagree with at all, and I choose right then and there to love him even more. I think of the way my heart still beats out of my chest when he gets home from work, I think of the way I feel when I see him and Gram laughing together or both of them passed out in our bed (looking like TWINS mind you!!) and I know that the choice to love him has been the best choice I've ever made.
I know that God made him just for me. He made him the other half of the whole we became when we said "I do." I mean it when I tell you that he is literally the piece that completes me, as cliche as that may sound. We have been given a precious gift. Sometimes we haven't taken care of that gift the way we should have. We haven't always treasured one another the way God intends for a husband and wife too.
That being said, I think that is again where the fact that love is a choice comes largely into play within a marriage. I know that for a long time my insecurities caused us to argue about things that were, in reality, no big deal! The devil was taking the things that he knew would alienate me from the bond that God had created and using them to tear me, and ultimately my marriage, down. He was separating us and in essence, turning us against one another. That is exactly why the Bible says to that wives should submit to their husbands (Colossians 3:18-19) and that husbands must honor their wives (1 Peter 3:7) because THOSE things breed a healthy God centered marriage and in a marriage like that, the devil has no standing! Once we began to live life the way we were meant to, things immediately got better.
I'm so pleased to tell you now, that I have a happy marriage, with the Lord right smack dab in the middle of it. God has rewarded us for being faithful. He has shown us how to lift one another up and encourage one another in a way that honors Him!
The passage that has really spoken to me, and has really taken root in my heart is this:
In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:26-27
It is difficult to remember sometimes when I'm angry, not to stew on it, not to allow it to fester. I am guilty of going to bed angry on occasion, and it always ends up with me feeling worse than was necessary!! I try to remember that God forgives me for my sins every day! I can forgive my husband for accidentally shrinking a pair of my pants, or for being too zoned out to hear me when he's watching TV! I chose to love him no matter what. Until death do us part. I meant it the day I said it and I mean it just as much, probably more, now.
I've been BLESSED to find someone who I know loves me despite my flaws. But, it isn't always the fairy tale that we imagine married life to be. In the movies, the newlyweds have an adorable apartment and a cat and they can't keep their hands off of each other. In real life, the newlyweds (in our case) had an infant, and a cat, bills out the wa-zoo, and life was quickly rearing its sometimes ugly head.
Please do not take from that, that I would trade any of it. I wouldn't. My husband and my son are my whole life. To me, they are perfect. I love them more than I can even attempt to put into words for you here. My point is, that marriage can be hard.
Last week at church, the sermon was about marriage and I've been thinking about it a lot. Thinking about what I understand about marriage and what the Bible says about it. I'd heard before that love is a choice, not a feeling. It made sense, but the more I thought about it after I heard it at church, the more it really sank in. I really stopped and thought about what it meant to make the choice to love someone for the rest of your life. The choice I made when I married Blaine. The choice I make every single day when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep.
There are days when we argue and I know in that moment, we really do not like each other. But then I look at him and I think of what my life would be like if he weren't there for me to disagree with at all, and I choose right then and there to love him even more. I think of the way my heart still beats out of my chest when he gets home from work, I think of the way I feel when I see him and Gram laughing together or both of them passed out in our bed (looking like TWINS mind you!!) and I know that the choice to love him has been the best choice I've ever made.
I know that God made him just for me. He made him the other half of the whole we became when we said "I do." I mean it when I tell you that he is literally the piece that completes me, as cliche as that may sound. We have been given a precious gift. Sometimes we haven't taken care of that gift the way we should have. We haven't always treasured one another the way God intends for a husband and wife too.
That being said, I think that is again where the fact that love is a choice comes largely into play within a marriage. I know that for a long time my insecurities caused us to argue about things that were, in reality, no big deal! The devil was taking the things that he knew would alienate me from the bond that God had created and using them to tear me, and ultimately my marriage, down. He was separating us and in essence, turning us against one another. That is exactly why the Bible says to that wives should submit to their husbands (Colossians 3:18-19) and that husbands must honor their wives (1 Peter 3:7) because THOSE things breed a healthy God centered marriage and in a marriage like that, the devil has no standing! Once we began to live life the way we were meant to, things immediately got better.
I'm so pleased to tell you now, that I have a happy marriage, with the Lord right smack dab in the middle of it. God has rewarded us for being faithful. He has shown us how to lift one another up and encourage one another in a way that honors Him!
The passage that has really spoken to me, and has really taken root in my heart is this:
In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:26-27
It is difficult to remember sometimes when I'm angry, not to stew on it, not to allow it to fester. I am guilty of going to bed angry on occasion, and it always ends up with me feeling worse than was necessary!! I try to remember that God forgives me for my sins every day! I can forgive my husband for accidentally shrinking a pair of my pants, or for being too zoned out to hear me when he's watching TV! I chose to love him no matter what. Until death do us part. I meant it the day I said it and I mean it just as much, probably more, now.