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.
“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” -Ecclesiastes 11:5 ESV
Temptation to Minimize the Truth
I was trying to look up articles or blogs about the importance of being a pro-life Christian to post on social media today in lieu of writing out something that had already been said well. To my dismay, I found more that instead tried justify abortion and death. I went down a googling rabbit hole of reading and it has honestly left me deeply discouraged this afternoon.
As believers, we should be informed by Truth in our lives. I fear that many of us are more concerned with popularizing our faith by minimizing the Truth. I am plagued by this temptation regularly.
I was reminded of Romans 1 at Church this Sunday. That passage is convicting for everyone but it also reminds me that sometimes under the mantra of Christian love, or for fear of offending, we actually forget to tell people the Truth, which is the whole reason for Love in the first place.
How much are we shortchanging precious souls by being ashamed of the gospel or glazing over the Truth about who God is and how to serve him?
Jesus Calls Us to Abundant Life
Jesus ate with sinners and he loved the “unlovable” but he required of them a change. He did not have them continue to wallow in sin, he brought them up to Life so they could have Life abundantly.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
– Jesus, John 10:10
He commanded to us to sin no more and to live in the Truth because it sets you free. John is the book of Christ’s love but He asks us to follow him. To give up this world and live for Christ, not to walk in darkness.
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” – John 8:12
Jesus was and is attractive to sinners because He deeply and authentically loves us, we are all created in the image of God and made intentionally. However, he also provided a way out, a way to live differently. A way to no longer be a slave to the sin and evil of this world but to live with a purpose and with joy.
Living Truth
In “Christian-ese ” we call this process of living more and more like Christ “Sanctification.” What that really means is that God has the power to change hearts and lives so radically that we are no longer recognizable to the world as we were before. He calls us to be greater than we are, greater than how we exist separate from God.
Truly, the way we live, the way we vote, the way we speak and the way we serve should be informed by Truth and we need to consider what it looks like to not conform to the world or the culture and to not be ashamed of God’s word and what is commands.
In the spirit of speaking the Truth, abortion ends a human life which is inherently valuable. It also hurts the mother both inside and out. The argument that so-called pro-lifers don’t deeply and genuinely care about the well-being of both of those souls is deeply untrue.
Jesus loves them both.
We love them both.
We would to do well to remember the Truth about God’s love, for everyone, and stand for that which is so deeply important… human souls.
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.
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.
“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.
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 thatI’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.
Wife, mom, daughter, teacher, blogger, crafter, organizer - but most and best of all, I am a Christian. I am passionate about my family and my God. I am married to my best friend and am blessed with a one year old son who keeps me busy all the time staying at home with him. And I am glad to be in the service of our incredible and awesome God.
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.
It’s one of those things we cherish in others, perhaps even require in our most meaningful earthly relationships. The definitions of “faithful” according to Dictionary.com are as follows:
1. strict or thorough in the performance of duty:
a faithful worker.
2.true to one’s word, promises, vows, etc.
3.steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant:
faithful friends.
4.reliable, trusted, or believed.
5.adhering or true to fact, a standard, or an original; accurate:
a faithful account; a faithful copy.
6.full of faith; believing.
Faithfulness is a foundational component of love, commitment, and trust. That is probably the reason we crave it from our friends, family, and loved ones. I believe we also need it because faithfulness is a key attribute of God and how He relates to us. God is love. God is faithful, and he keeps His promises. He is constant, He is to be trusted, He is thorough, and His word is true.
New Perspective on God’s Faithfulness
As an adult, I have reread the Old Testament with new perspective about how it is really telling us the story of Jesus and God’s plan to save a troubled and corrupted world. When I was young, I always got “trust and obey” out of Old Testament stories. But as I grew up, the Lord showed me that His perfect faithfulness was demonstrated time and again. Layers and layers of faithfulness. (Thanks to the Jesus Storybook Bible, I find it much easier to communicate some of this to my kiddos.)
What is a greater story of faithfulness than God’s commitment to all his promises to the Israelites? The first chapter of Joshua comes to mind. After God told them to finally enter the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership, he tells them this:
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you?Be strong and courageous.Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for theLordyour God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:8-9 ESV)
Not Always Obvious
I could go on and talk about all the proof in the New and Old Testaments of God’s unending faithfulness, including the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, but it is more difficult to understand faithfulness in your own day-to-day life. God’s faithfulness is sometimes easiest seen in hindsight. It’s not something that always seems obvious when we are in the midst of something hard or terrible, or even joyous. But I assure you, He is Faithful. All. The. Time. If we know Him, and we know His Word, we know He is with us wherever we go.
Faithfulness in Big and Small Ways
In my own life, this is sometimes how the Lord urges me to trust and obey in the hard things. He reminds me how He has been faithful in so many “small” and “big” ways. One “small” way in which God has been faithful in my life is that He consistently provides someone to meet my needs on days I just feel weary. Whether it be a friend in a lonely place, ladies from church to help bring meals or offer extra helping hands when you have a newborn (or two), or the person at the grocery store who lets you go ahead of them because your kids are losing their minds, and even a husband who brings dinner home after a long day.
These are “small” examples, but nonetheless, it is powerful to know that He cares about the small things in my life as much as the big things. It helps me change my perspective. When I look back on the Lord’s faithfulness in my life, especially in tragedy or heartache, it overwhelms me. But his faithfulness exists even in times of joy. I can do nothing else but know the same will be true in the future.
God is Faithful because He Loves You
Finding His faithfulness in the “small” things each day makes it so much easier to find comfort when everything, or even just one thing, seems to be falling apart. God is Faithful, All the Time. He is faithful because He loves us; He loves us more than anyone in this world is capable of loving us. Meditate on that for a while. God loves you. He has a plan for our lives and He is faithful through it all. It may not always look the way we expect. It may take time and reflection, perhaps even years down the road, or perhaps we will never know the full extent of His faithfulness in our lives.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whohave been called according to his purpose.”
Please note that this verse doesn’t say all things are good in this life, but says that HE works things together for THE good OF those called according to HIS purpose.
He is sovereign; He is great. But He is love, and He is faithful to those who serve Him. Do you know what is even better? He is faithful even when we fail.
I implore you to seek God in all things, but especially during times of trial. Trust in Him who is faithful. Even if we don’t understand His ways in the present, we can be assured that He loves us more than we can imagine.
I can still remember the “I do” moment. Wedding dress soft and full, friends and family surrounding and, him. He was the one I had chosen. On that warm October afternoon, I gazed into those soft brown eyes and promised to love and cherish, for better or for worse, until death drove us apart.
I sit here today and my mind recollects the past seven years of our lives as one. Our marriage has seen so many good and beautiful moments. Just the same, it has seen some hard and ugly moments. It seems that for as many times as we have been on cloud nine together, we also have been galaxies apart. And this is where it just gets messy and confusing. It is often portrayed that your spouse (i.e. “The One” or your “soulmate”) is supposed to fill that empty space inside and that once you have found him/her, then your happiness is fulfilled. After all, isn’t that where the happy ending is found at the end of the sappy, romantic movie?
The Mess
Unfortunately, this is where my husband and I had at one time found ourselves. We had this unfortunate expectation that our own happiness should be fulfilled by the other. The harder we tried, the more frustrating it became. We longed for the “happily ever after” relationship. Our marriage became the idol we zealously pursued. The more we pursued, the farther away from happiness we became. But He can be found in the broken and in the messy.In the deepest, darkest corners of our sin His Spirit came to us and pursued. Where we saw a broken marriage, despair, and ruin, He saw rescue, hope, and restoration.
He sought us out. He stretched out His hand of grace, inviting us to choose Him–to choose life for ourselves and for our marriage. When our hearts yielded to His, we found our deepest desires to be wrapped up in Him. Only then was our marriage able to heal, grow, and begin to flourish. Everything was not instantly better. In His time, He continued to draw us individually closer to Him. As we began to love Him wholly, we slowly learned how to love each other truer and deeper than we could have ever imagined. We learned how His ways are so much better than our own.
From Brokenness Comes Redemption
This path was sometimes difficult. It often seemed as though journeying through desert terrain, but it was during this time that I was brought into the sacred closeness I now experience with my God. From the ashes of my brokenness grew a beautiful relationship with my Redeemer. Even after moments where I least deserved, He pursued me and offered me His love. Finally, I had found what I had yearned for most: the only thing that could fill the empty chasm of my soul. I finally found what had been there all along…I found Him.
“…When I found him whom my soul loves, I held him, and would not let him go…”
The words of this verse course through me. I not only know them, but I feel them. Now, He is the one I pursue first. I strive to know Him the most. He is my all in all, the lover of my soul. Because of Him, I now know how to truly and unselfishly love my husband.
To Be Loved by Him is Enough
What a beautiful thing it is to be loved and treasured by the King of Kings. To know that there is nothing which can tear you apart from Him. If to know nothing else in this life but His far-stretching and grace-filled redemptive love, it is enough.
“No power in the sky above or in the earth below–indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Maybe this month you look at things differently. Instead of searching for that perfect and fulfilling love in a person, find the greatest love you’ll ever know in Christ Jesus. No matter what your circumstances–happily married, on the edge of divorce, or single–don’t let the pursuit of romance and the “perfect marriage” become your idol. It will never be enough. There is a God who loves you and only He can satisfy your soul and your deepest longing; He will always be enough.
