Ten Years Ago, We Fell in Love

Ten Years Ago, We Fell in Love

I am a recovering Army brat who loves to travel and start new adventures. My handsome husband and I met at Oklahoma Christian University and he whisked me away to Kansas. So, I bought some ruby red high heels and made Topeka my home. I have a rough and rowdy Princess 4-year-old girl, amazing twin boys (almost 3) and a newborn baby girl who all make every day an adventure. We are grateful to be part of an amazing church in Topeka who regularly challenges and encourages our whole family. I have been both a full-time working mom and a stay-at-home-mom and/or both at the same time at one point or another. I am constantly seeking God’s wisdom on “balancing it all” and following His plan for my life, not mine.
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Note: Our story is our story; marriages can be quite different and face unique challenges. We just hope to encourage those with what we’ve learned in our life.

Best Decision of My Life

On Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I will celebrate more than ten years of marriage. We were very nearly babies when we wed–I was twenty years old and he was twenty-one. We were very grown up, or so we thought.

Honestly though, despite being young, it was the best decision we ever made. I remember hearing people who had been married for twenty years say they were more in love than ever with their spouse. At the time, that concept made no sense to me. I couldn’t imagine being more in love with this guy.

We dated for three years, half of which was our engagement.  Despite my “plan” to have a career before I entered into a serious relationship, we fell in love pretty early on in our relationship. We attended a Christian liberal arts university and I was bound and determined not to be there for my “MRS.” However, God had other plans for my life.  We married before our senior year of college. After we graduated, we moved out of state so my husband could attend law school in his hometown.

We Fell In Love, Yet I Was Miserable

Year one was a breeze. I thought marriage was not hard.

Year two was the most stretching year of our relationship.

He was in law school, I was in a new town, surrounded by everyone who knew my husband and his family but not me, and I was working but incredibly lonely. What happened to college where all our friends had time to hang out every day and come over any time? How fair was it that I was being a “grown up” starting my career while he was still in school? Why was this town so small and why is there no decent retail? These were all things my twenty-two-year-old self was struggling with daily.  I was married to the love of my life. I worked in my degree field in a job that was a great fit. And yet, I was miserable.

I did not understand why the second year was so much harder. For goodness’ sake, we were in love! We had even gone through two premarital counseling sessions for “extra-good premarital preparedness training.” Because I thought that both of us being believers, doing extra premarital counselling, plus having successfully married parents, made us experts. Oh, and don’t you know, we knew each other incredibly well and had discussed everything under the sun.  (Cue eyeroll…remember, I was twenty-two).

Or did we?

Our new church family became the reason we have the marriage we do today. They challenged us in our own relationships with Christ in new and profound ways. We realized we both had a lot of spiritual growth to do. I realized that as amazing as my new husband seemed (and is), he is a human and will let me down somehow. He doesn’t mean to, but it happens. And I let him down, even though he has never told me as much, but I’m sure I have at some point.  We learned a lot of things about each other, but most importantly we learned how to live for Christ, to die to ourselves, and to grow in our faith more deeply than we had before.

It came down to this: the closer each of us grew in Christ independently, the better and deeper our relationship grew together.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

As it turns out, that’s also a progressive transformation.

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The Secret to a Great Marriage

Over the years, we’ve participated in some awesome and challenging marriage studies with small groups, such as Eggerich’s Love and Respect, John Piper’s Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and Saving your Marriage Before It Starts by Les and Leslie Parrott. Each one provided great tools and things to consider or work on in a new way, but it comes down to your own relationship with God. You will be a better spouse when you are working on your relationship with the Lord. It’s not magic. It all takes time and intentional investment, but that’s the secret.

Ten years and four kids later, I can now say that I’ve never been more in love with my husband. I understand him in a deeper way. He challenges me to be in the Word, and works tirelessly to “fill my love tank” daily (see The Five Love Languages).  He leads our family devotions each night and parents better than I do, and none of it has anything to do with me.  Yes, we both are very different people than we were ten years ago. Little by little, we’re becoming new people in Christ. If we were the same people we were ten years ago, I don’t know if our marriage would have lasted. (I hate to think that, but the selfishness in both of us was unsustainable.)

There are still occasional tough days, and we each still have a lot of work to do. But there are a lot of wonderful days. I can’t wait to see where we are in another ten years.

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The Submissive Wife

The Submissive Wife

I am a proud wife and Mother! My hubby, Tyler, and I both attended Oklahoma Christian where our love grew! We got married, had two beautiful kiddos, our son Gunner and daughter Brooklyn, and we are living a truly blessed life! I am a Kindergarten teacher in the great state of Texas and most importantly a Christian. I strive daily to keep God #1 because he is the reason I have all the amazing blessings, I give him all the praise!
Candace B
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“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.  I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.”

1 Timothy 2:11-12

Submission

It is a humble word, but in years past the world has twisted the meaning into something negative and something to cause disruption in relationships.  Why is this? Women’s rights? Equality? It could be attributed to many different things. I asked my husband what his definition of submission would be.  His answer was, “Putting someone else’s desire or will in front of your own.”  I love that the man I married–the man I committed my life to–understands that when I am submissive to him that I am putting his needs before my own. And likewise, he also puts my needs before his own.

I pray that you and your husband feel the same way.  Being a submissive wife is a beautiful thing.  I have never thought of it as negative, but I have seen it misconstrued in many ways.  As a Christian you are not only to be submissive to your husband but most importantly to God.  He commands it.  James 4:7 says “Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  Humbling yourself to our Lord–submitting to him–is putting your faith in Him and fleeing from evil.

There will be people who take advantage of this humbling act.  Some people do take advantage of their role as head of the household instead of centering the marriage relationship on what God wants and demands of husbands.  1 Corinthians 7:3 says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.” We need to be proactive about this, but moreover we need to trust our husband and have open communication to further strengthen the marriage.  When your marriage is centered on Christ, you serve your husband, and, in turn, serve God’s purpose for a strong Christian marriage.

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What Does Being Submissive Mean?

Does being submissive mean you don’t get a say? That what your husband says goes? Absolutely not!  Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through word and present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Praise God for the Word!  Scripture tells us that husbands are to take their role VERY seriously and to be able “present her as a radiant church.”  Being a submissive wife is a beautiful, humbling act.  As wives, let’s be mindful that our husbands can be under pressure with having this charged to them by our Lord.  Encourage your husband.  Always let him know that you appreciate him in all that he does for you and your family.  Practice being submissive daily and look to the Bible for encouragement and understanding in this matter.

May God bless you and your marriages.  Be the wives that God wants you to be according to Ephesians 5:22:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”

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How can you be an encouragement to your husband?

 

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