I believe in the power of reflection. It allows us space from the actual events and choices we've made; thus, it enables us to more accurately assess motives and what worked great, as well as where we went wrong . . .

This year God taught me a lot! I want to share with you two lessons I had to learn the hard way:

1. Being a supportive spouse does not include criticism!
The bible talks about Eve being created to be a helpmate, a support to Adam, her husband. Outside of serving God, I have always viewed this as one of my main purposes in life. However, sometimes I interpret helper or supporter as meaning I should get really involved in my husband's ministry. Usually, this is not a bad thing; however, sometimes I (shamefully) think it is my right to criticize, or as I would attempt to more nicely phrase it: give advice. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in speaking the truth in love. Yet, my husband is affirmation driven and my attitude about his work makes a big difference. Earlier this year we attended an Intentional Living marriage conference, which really convicted me to work on changing my demeanor from critical to positive and supportive. I still fail, more than I like to admit, but God seized this opportunity to overhaul my sometimes pessimistic spirit and reteach me about joy. Another resource God encouraged me through was "Becoming Your Husband's Cheerleader" by Robyn McKelvy. She also wrote a book called "Say It Loud: Becoming Your Husband's Personal Cheerleader". Here is a link to a radio interview that she did with Family Life Today.

http://www.familylife.com/audio/series/past-programs-familylife-today/past-familylife-today/20140123-becoming-your-husbands-cheerleader#.UvcGO_tnETA

2. God needs to direct your steps, not you. . .
Jeremiah 10:33 "Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own;
    it is not for them to direct their steps."

Often I forget this. I analyze each day, ordering how I think it should go, making my lists. . . (endless lists!) Mitch and I are dedicated to seeking God's will; sadly, sometimes OUR will gets in the way. Let me tell you, when this happens, it does not end well. Last spring, we dedicated hours and hours to a home search. In our minds, renting was not the best way we could manage our money, buying would be so much smarter! Right?! Fortunately, God intervened through the good 'ole Financial Peace Dave Ramsey program to redirect us, "Hey guys, remember your students loans. . . what about that car you just financed?! A mortgage will only burden you further. . . " It was a tough thing to surrender, especially since we had spent hours and hours crunching the finances, talking to a realtor, looking at houses online, etc. We knew if we changed our plans, we would never get that time back. Yet, we could not ignore God's prompting. Our desires had dictated our choices rather than God's plan for us. That lesson taught us that we needed to spend more time with God in prayer and study as a couple. On the bright side, after trimming our budget, rearranging our priorities, and working hard, we entered 2014 DEBT FREE!!!! In addition, for the same price we were paying for our apartment, we were blessed with an opportunity to rent an incredible house (twice the size of our apartment) from a wonderful couple at church. Now, we can focus on other financial goals. God provides!

God has taught us so much, and I know he will continue to refine us day by day and year by year. As you head into Valentine's Day with your spouse, take some time to reflect on what lessons God has taught you during your marriage, and thank him for His guidance!

As humans, we are great at constructing walls. Look at the Great Wall of China, the former Berlin Wall, and figuratively, our psychological ability to construct mental walls. Our walls keep things in and out.

What walls are you building? Are your walls a result of living in sin or avoiding God?

I love the book of Isaiah because we see God’s love for his people. He pursues them and sets forth beautiful declarations of his love and mercy in images of how wonderful their lives would be if they turned back to him. Unfortunately, they continue to go their own direction for so long that they can no longer hear his voice. They ask prophets to cease speaking his messages. Instead of turning back to the giver of life, they pursue what they want, rather than what God wants. God's people create a barrier between themselves and their creator: Sovereign Lord and king.
God sees this and sadly remarks

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it." –Isaiah 30:15

The words “but you would have none of it”, awoke something in me today. God wants to make things right. His desire is for us to repent, rest, and take peace in the salvation he offers. I know I am guilty of forging ahead on my own when I should slow down, seek quietness, and trust him to be my strength. Repentance, rest, quietness, and trust. None of these things are repulsive or demanding! They should make my spirit sing! Yet, when I repeatedly fail to seek God, I feel like there is wall or separation that makes it hard to reconnect.

Reading Isaiah today and thinking about how Jesus came down to earth for us reminded me that no gulf is too wide, no sin too great, and no wall to tall to keep God from His people. Jesus came to bring us in contact with the Father. He is our great High Priest. When Jesus died, the veil that separated man from the Holy of Holies in the temple was torn. The whole Bible pulses with this message: turn back to God, turn away from your old ways. He begs us to answer his call to trust him to be our strength whatever storm may come. I hope these words breathe the peace and strength into your heart that they did into mine. I need reminded daily how passionately God loves me, loves us: his people, his bride.

(Sidenote) Not all walls are bad. I have heard about people putting "hedges" around their marriage. This means they are striving to protect their marriage from outside temptations. That is a smart type of wall. Though, as John Acuff points out in his book “Stuff Christians Like”, hedges are kinda wimpy. So, I am going to opt for a nice, tall concrete wall guarded by angels.

Money is one of the biggest causes of divorce and conflict within marriage. It is also an area that Mitch and I knew would take some... practice. We knew this even when we were dating.

According to the financial guru Dave Ramsey, Mitch is a free spirit and I am a nerd when it comes to our finances.

This does not mean that Mitch doesn’t care. In fact, he cares a lot. The difference is attention span and interest level. Mitch cares because he wants us to be financially secure.

Quick tangent - Mitch is so sexy when he gets excited about getting out of debt and our financial future! I admire how he is leading us in such a positive direction.

Mitch has about a 20-minute window of focus for money matters. I, on the other hand, can crunch numbers and talk for hours about financial plans. When we first completed the “Relating with Money” session of Dave Ramsey’s financial peace university where he talks about nerds and free spirits, we laughed a lot because we felt like he had spied in on our budgeting sessions. I was blushing the whole time, embarrassed by my nerd-hood. (Yes, I did make that word up...)

Even though we started out feeling good and laughing a lot, this journey toward financial peace has been hard. Many times, we find ourselves crying and facing down tough decisions. We decided not to buy a house this year. Our budget is tight since we are scrapping up money for dental bills and paying off the car. Nevertheless, we do have some exciting news:

WE PAID OFF OUR STUDENT LOANS!

How much did Mitch still have in student loans? $19,994.00. Normally, we would not have been able to do this so fast. It would have taken a couple years, except my grandma blessed us years ago with some inheritance in a couple of different ways. Not a lot, but enough to get us a solid start. I added money to it in college and we let the compounding interest do its thing. As a result, we used a good chunk of that to pay off the student loans.

What is our next step?

1. Pay off the car.

2. Build our 3-6 month emergency fund.

3. Begin saving for a down payment on a house.

4. Investing.

We will never be rich, but we can be secure. God is good and we are striving to live in a way that blesses His kingdom through our giving and stewardship of money.

Challenge:

Take a serious look at your financial situation with your spouse. Pray and seek guidance in your finances. Don’t let Satan turn you against each other over money. You are on the same team.

If you find that you are not where you would like to be, check out the Financial Peace University. You will not regret it!

Dear Readers, those of you that are consistent, I am so sorry for my flakiness on posting blog. I thought about blaming it on our crazy past couple months, but excuses are just excuses right? I am not going to make any promise to you that I cannot keep, but I am resolved to continue our conversation on marriage—what can we do to make our marriages stronger and more Christ-centered.

Weddings, root canals, and debt—what in the world could these three things have in common? Well, for one thing, both weddings and root canals can put you in debt. Speaking personally, they summarize our past couple days.

This past Saturday, Mitch had the honor of being a groomsman for some friends of ours. The wedding was beautiful in its simplicity and focus on the couple’s journey and love. We had a blast at the reception. It was fun to see the newly married couple break some dance moves to “Oppa Gangnam Style”. Every couple needs to be able to let loose and shake some tail feathers right? Sadly, not all occasions are so joyous.

Enter root canals . . . I have never had one, thank goodness, but Mitch has not been so fortunate. In fact, he has had two . . . on the same tooth. He had a root canal completed a little over a year ago before we moved. The dentist that did it was, well, old, and very shaky. I could hear Mitch moaning from the waiting room. Long story short, that dentist retired a couple months later and Mitch found out that the root canal was infected after he swelled up like he had an egg in his cheek and came down with a fever on two different occasions. It was frustrating having to pay $850 to have a root canal redone. Yet, we realized that through this experience that God is good and he will provide.

Even though we know that God provides and we are incredibly blessed, we know the Bible tells us to be good stewards of our resources. Managing our money well has always been very important to Mitch and I. Nonetheless, we did walk out of college with some student. We have diligently chipped away on them each month; still, we felt complacency and a lack of purpose seeping into our budget and resolve. But after buying a car and now in the market to buy a house, God woke us up. We were encouraged to really attack our remaining debt through some wise friends and trustworthy advisors. At first it seemed risky, but the more we looked into it we realized we could do it. It won’t always be easy and it will mean turning down some opportunities that are out of our price range. However, we believe the freedom and security it will bring us is worth it. (Please, keep us in your prayers as we seek to be more intentional.)

So, is there a moral to these seemingly unrelated subjects? Why, yes, there is! I believe we are made in God’s image and called to glorify God in all areas of our lives: our marriages, our money, and our challenges, yes even root canals.

Question:

1.       What are some challenges that you have been able to glorify God through?

One thing that I truly love about being in Christ is the community that comes with it. Honestly, you could join a lot of clubs in life, dedicated to any number of things: books, health, public speaking, playing games, socializing, dating, even fandom. In each of these social networks/clubs, you will find people that you enjoy being around. But I have a hard time thinking about any kind of organization that will come with a community that is involved in your personal life as the body of Christ. Once you decide that you are all in with Jesus (and even before that point) you are automatically injected into a body of supporters, cheerleaders, friends, and family. You are blood related. 

You are adopted as one of their own.

We see this idea explained by Paul while talking about Fighting against sinful nature in Romans 8:12-16, “Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

It’s a beautiful relationship. God loves on you so that you can love on others. He gives you the ability to reach out and affect lives for Him. Unfortunately though, there is something that gets in the way; something that holds us back. Intentional or not, there will always be a wall to climb over. So what is this mysterious force that sabotages us from the start?

Ourselves

We con ourselves into believing that we have very little worth from the start. There is now way that when someone asks how we are doing, they actually care about the response. People never care that much. They don’t really expect honesty.  We tell ourselves that it’s a pleasantry. It doesn't matter, anyway. Why tell the truth? So we default to our standard response, “Fine.”

Fine is the perfect response of you want to keep someone at an arm’s length. You aren't admitting to personal failure or a broken spirit. It doesn't give a window into your doubts, fears, or wrongs. And yet, at the very same time, it doesn't show your personal victories or on-goings in your world. It doesn't warrant celebration or congratulatory obligations.

Fine is average. Fine is passing. Fine is C+. Fine works just fine.

Which makes it every Christian’ favorite four letter ‘f-word.’

And really, that really is (dare I say it…) fine. It’s your choice. Some would just rather stay at an arm’s length. There really are those who use the, “Hey! How are ya?” as a pleasantry and noting deeper.  But what if they weren't? What if, by all impossible standards, they really do want to know about you, how you are, and how they can be praying for you? What then? You have just shut out a beautiful and tangible way to allow someone into your world.

Proverbs 24:26 says, “An honest answer is like a kiss of friendship.” Isn't that what we want? Friendship? A friend that will share our lives with our hopes and struggles attached? Isn't this also what is offered more often than not within the Lord’s church?

So, next time someone that you trust asks you how you are and you have some time to give, answer honestly. Open yourself to the possibility that someone actually cares. 

Don’t answer with, “Oh, F***!”

As I sit here to write, feeling better than I have felt in days (though still a little weak), I find myself able to overlook the flaws surrounding me. Normally, I would dwell on the need to dust and vacuum or the growing mountain of stewing laundry spilling out of our hamper. However, through the help of God's grace, loyal friendship, caring family, and a loving husband, that is not what I see.

I see my husband's love through the beautiful flowers he bought me when I came home from work sick. His tenderness through the dinners he prepared even when I had no appetite and the sacrifices he made to make sure I was going to feel better (As well as making sure I diligently take my medicine. I am bad about that when I am sick).

I see the love of family that check in with me and provide helpful advice.

I see the love of friends that send me encouragement cards without even knowing I am sick. As well as the friends that when they heard I wasn't feeling well texted me to check in and see how I was doing.

God can take undesirable circumstances to highlight what is really important in life. Thank you to everyone who helped me realize that today!

Question:
Is there someone that makes you feel especially loved on bad days? If so, please give that person a shout out!

The story of Martha in the New Testament was one of those Bible stories that was covered and recovered in children’s classes. I think it was popular because the moral was always the same—get your priorities right and take time for God. Since I was young, I have pitied Martha for getting it wrong. I understood her perspective--she was a hostess and wanted to serve. To my joy, last week we covered this story in an adult class and I discovered that I was not the only “Martha sympathizer”. The teacher even went as far as to praise Martha’s actions and propose the thought that Jesus was not trying to dishonor her service, but rather make the point that in that moment, Mary had chosen the better option.  

Laying aside the busyness and demands of the day to sit at Jesus’ feet and soak in his presence and teaching.

That was what Mary chose and what Martha gave up. Not being able to see what was most important and really worth her time was Martha’s shortcoming. It is also mine most days.

After a busy week I found myself stressed as I looked around the apartment at all of the chores that needed done: cleaning the bathroom, laundry, mopping, grocery shopping, oh, and more laundry! I had just returned home from a going away party for a coworker, which I got desperately lost trying to find (I drove around for over an hour before I found it), and I had three hours before I needed to be somewhere else. Mitch also had those three hours open before he had to fly off in a different direction. In my accumulated frustrated with our laundry heap, I completely missed his signals to steal a couple hours reconnecting. As we were preparing to conquer yet another fun, but busy evening, he expressed that he had hoped we could have spent the afternoon together since this week we had not been able to allocate much “us” time.

In that moment, I felt much like what Martha must have felt like when Jesus replied to her stressed pleadings. I was overwhelmed by the demands of the day so much so that I let something infinitely valuable slip through my grasp. If I could, I would go back and take that chance to connect with Mitch; just as I suppose Martha would go back and take that chance to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn. This week I pray that I learn from my mistakes.

Questions for thought:

1.      What are you overlooking due to busyness that may be more worthy of your time?
2.      Do you relate to Martha? If so, how?

Intention - an act or instance of determining mentally upon some
action or result.

Have you ever had great plans going into your evening with your spouse, but before you know it, it’s 10:30 PM and nothing was accomplished? Have you ever told yourself, “Today is the day that I will stop and get her flowers on the way home,” and yet it doesn’t happen. Or what about the thought, “Tonight is the night that we are going to set aside some solid time for the bedroom,” and in a blink you are brushing your teeth together without anything "getting done."

Sometimes it just comes down to intention. I intended to do that. We
all intend to do those things. The issue is getting them done.

Tonight, I’d like to give you a couple of quick thoughts on follow through.

1) Set yourself up for success

If you intend to do something, the easiest way to not get it done is to not set up a plan in the first place. How can you set up extra time for your spouse if you leave 30 minutes late from work? If you want to
do something, set yourself up for success by making a plan first. Don’t let your moment slip through your fingers. Plan ahead and plan smart.

2) Follow your gut

If you find yourself dreaming about something that you want to do for
your spouse, chances are, you are right. If you feel like you want to reach out and do something special, then there is a reason that you are feeling that way. And your spouse probably feels the same way. So
follow your gut. But don’t forget to plan it!

3) Don’t sweat the small stuff

So, even the most well made plans can be thrown off. Often times, it’s not your fault. Don’t feel bad about it. Speaking only for myself, I sometimes let my plans be thrown off by small things that I could
power through. But I don’t. I allow the derailed plan to devastate my mood and outlook. My advice would be this. If it’s something that you can work though, then don’t sweat the small stuff. Push hard to make that intention a reality.

4) If in doubt, adapt

On a related note, if your plan cannot be executed the way that you originally had it planned, improvise. Adapt to the situation that you are placed in. Maybe you couldn’t get around leaving 30 minutes late to work. Maybe traffic caught you off guard and those fresh cut roses can’t be bought. So what? You’re smart! You’re clever! Make it work it work to your advantage. Tell your spouse that you are taking them out on a date instead of delaying dinner that much longer. Take your hunny on a walk and pick a flower on the trail. You’re as cool as the other side of the pillow. Adapt and make it work.

5) Don’t allow the failure to stop your future plans

Finally, some things just cannot be helped. Some plans are doomed from
the start. This happens to the best of us. I know it’s frustrating. When it happens to us I can’t help but feel disappointed. But this is life. It’s how it works. But don’t allow that disappointment to poison you against trying again. Again, if your gut is telling you to do something, you’ve got a good chance that you are on the right track. So dust yourself off and try again.

Just a couple of thoughts for you from a guy who’s intentions have all too often stayed in the realm of the imagination.

Question – What happened last time you had a great idea for you and your spouse? How did it go? Did your plans change?

- Mitch

This week at church, one of our elders made the comment that "no living breathing organism, like the church, can exist on a plateau for long if at all." Essentially, they are either getting stronger or  weaker.  The wisdom and applicability of his comment struck me: this is not just true for churches.  

I found myself thinking, 'What about my marriage?'

Mitch and I have passed the infamous "two year mark" that so many marriage books highlight. Apparently, after two years of marriage, the newlywed stage has passed and the real struggles emerge. Knowing this, I thought long and hard about our marriage and whether it was growing stronger or quietly weaker.

As I turned this thought over in my head I came to recognize how easy it was to buy into the "plateau misconception." So often we confuse complacency and our comfort level as a plateau in our marriages. We assume everything is fine and we will just keep on like this with no problems. When, in reality, complacency is robbing us from the inside out. Just as there are things such as caffeine that pull calcium out of our bones making them weaker without us even realizing it, so it is with complacency in our marriages. 

So where is your marriage? Are you as a couple, as two becoming one being, growing stronger or weaker?