because everyone is talking about marriage...

The last couple of weeks I have seen several different articles on the topic of marriage circulating the internet. They were sweet and idealistic views on how marriage should look. And though I am sure these articles were well intended, there was something that didn't sit right with me. I've been trying to hold my tongue (a trait that has never been one of my strong suits). I really didn't want to sit down and write a post about marriage. After all, having only been married for four months I don’t really have the credentials to tell others what marriage should look like. But after seeing these articles over and over I finally decided to say something. I want you to know that I write this with caution, knowing full well that I am no expert on marriage. My husband and I are exploring new territory every day. There is so much we don’t know; so much to figure out. And at the end of our lifetime I am sure we will have not perfected it. However, if we are wanting to know what marriage should look like, shouldn't we be turning to the one who created it for the answers? God has given us so much imagery on what it looks like to be good husbands and wives. He has already told us what marriage should look like, so why are we still searching? Why are we looking for a new formula to produce a happy and fulfilled marriage? I think the problem stems from the fact that we are asking too much from our spouses and ourselves, and too little from God.

ASKING TOO MUCH

The article that I have seen floating around the most is titled: “Marriage isn’t for You”. It is a super sweet post. And in a perfect world we would all love perfectly. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world. If it is MY job to make my husband happy, to make him feel fully loved and cared for, then Jon has a long road of disappointment ahead of him. I am a broken person who loves brokenly. I was not designed to play those roles in Jon’s life. We need to stop asking husbands and wives to be god to their spouses. I was not made to be Jon’s joy; I cannot satisfy his need for love; I do not have the authority to give Jon his identity or self worth. And to ask all of this out of marriage is setting it up for failure. I cannot meet all of my husband’s needs, but I can point him to the one who can.

I want to love my husband well. I want to make him laugh and calm his nerves. I want to be selfless; I want to be patient; I want to be compassionate and gracious. But I do not want to be Jon’s ultimate source for any of these things, because I will undoubtedly fail. And I cannot expect Jon to be all of these things to me. God is the only one who can love us fully, who can give us unending joy and peace. By asking someone else to do this we are assuring ourselves hurt and disappointment.

ASKING TOO LITTLE

Instead of turning to each other to meet these needs I want me and Jon to continually point each other to God. If we are going to God together with our needs then we will be free to turn around and pour out the blessings we have received from Him on each other. When I am being filled with God’s love then I will have love to give. When I receive God’s joy I will have joy to share. But to think that I have any of this to give on my own, apart from God, is false. I have to go to the ultimate source to fill me so that I have something to pour out. If we are finding our fulfillment, our identity, our worth, in Christ then we will not be left disappointed. It is important to understand that our role in this life is to glorify God. Period. Our role is not to make our spouse happy. If we are truly seeking to glorify God then we will love better. We will be more compassionate. We will bring joy to others. We will be gracious. We will put others before ourselves. But we must remember that none of these alone are our ultimate goal or purpose, it is simply what happens when we love and glorify God. When we understand our role versus God’s role then we will be able to look at our marriages with the correct perspective. I am not the source I am the tool.

While Jon and I were engaged we went through a book of questions you should ask before getting married. One of the questions that was asked was, “how can I know that you will make me happy for the rest of my life?” Jon and I talked about how conditional happiness is, and how there will undoubtedly be seasons of unhappiness in our lives. We talked about how we couldn't expect each other to be the source of our joy. I told Jon that I love him, and because of that I deeply desire to make him happy, and hopefully most of the time I will. However, I will never be the source of his joy, his joy comes completely from God. I am just a tool that God chooses to use to help provide that for Jon. I hope to never miss an opportunity to be a tool that God uses to bless my husband. I hope I am keenly aware of the areas in which I can serve and care for Jon. But Jon has to know that I am not the source. I have to know that God does not need me to be able to meet my husband’s needs, but he does allow me to be used by Him.

 When we are asking great things of God we do not have to ask our spouse to fill roles they cannot, and yet we will be able to love, give, and serve at a much greater capacity than we could have expected from ourselves. If you want to know what marriage should look like, look to the cross.

-holly

Photos courtesy of Marcie Meredith Photography and Jordan Washer Photography

standing in the gap...

This past week God has been gracefully convicting me concerning my prayer life. Recently my prayers have been shallow, selfish, and seldom. I know the importance of prayer, and I have seen the power of it in my own life. But sometimes when life is going good, and I have no urgent crisis that needs taken care of, my prayer life can start to dwindle. But what God has been opening my eyes to is the fact that there is plenty of crisis and devastation around me that still needs prayer. My lack of prayer for others says a lot about my heart condition, and what its saying isn't good. What its saying is that I’m not loving others the way that I should. I’m not caring for others the way that I should. God started to point this all out to me last week as I started to hear about the devastation happening in Egypt. – I am going to be honest and let you know that I understand very little about the circumstances surrounding the recent violence, and nothing about this post is meant to take a political stance, but what I do know is that every time  I turned on the news, or clicked on MSN I saw a new death toll. And each time that number grew, God began to chisel away at my heart, until eventually it was broken for the people of Egypt. Hundreds dead. Hundreds who had wives, husbands, children. Hundreds who probably did not know Christ. And I, foolishly, in my own comfort thought that I had nothing to pray for.

My mom was the one that first introduced me to the term “standing in the gap”. Three and a half years ago my brother was diagnosed as bipolar. And in the height of his sickness Tyler’s faith had faded some. His life had been turned upside down and he was confused and angry. During this time, my mom came to me with this verse from Ezekiel. And she told me that if Tyler can’t build up a wall for himself right now then we are going to do it for him.  That is probably the strongest my prayer life has ever been, and the closest I ever felt to Christ. During that time I was almost constantly in prayer, standing in the gap for my brother, and desperately pleading for God’s help, His healing, His rescue.  And God responded, every single time. God constantly showed us his power, love, and mercy. It was a difficult time for our family, but God received so much glory through it all.

I am very thankful for the blessings God has given me and my family. I am so thankful to be in a time of peace and comfort. But I must not be blind to everyone around me who is in a time of hardship and trial. God longs to give us our hearts desires, what if our hearts desire was for others? If I believe that God is faithful to answer our prayers, then why am I not praying for things that are important? Why am I not passionately pleading for those who are hurting?

Today my prayer is that my heart be softened, that my love for others abounds, and that my eyes are opened to the needs around me. I want to go to God with big requests, expecting big results. I want God to use me for his glory. I want spend my time building up a wall and standing in the gap for people who desperately need someone to fight for them.

Here are some other verses on prayer that God has been using to convict me, and make my heart more like his:

James 4:2-3 “You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

James 5:13 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Isaiah 30:18 “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you, therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of Justice. Blessed are all who wait on him.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

-holly

a running partner...

If you accidentally stumbled upon this blog post hoping for exercise advice let me go ahead and warn you that you have come to the wrong place. There are very few things in this world that I like less than running. I wish I was a health nut that loved to exercise, but I hate it so much that recently the only way I’ve been able to make myself “work out” and get my heart rate up has been through playing just dance on our wii. I am pathetic, I know it, and I am totally ok with it! What the title of this post is referring to is 1 Corinthians 9:24 “Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” 

There are a couple of times that scripture uses a race as a metaphor for our earthly life; a great race that takes perseverance and faith. When you get married you are signing on to be your spouse’s running partner for the remainder of that race. It is fun to have someone to run with. Someone to share the small everyday victories with, someone to offer support in the failures, someone to share in your passions, dreams, and goals. But being someone’s running partner comes with big responsibilities.

What makes a good running partner?  

1. Encouragement / support
2. Keeping pace
3. Fighting till the finish

When someone is training to run a marathon they have to do a lot more than just run every day. They must develop a whole life style that is going to help them finish the race. They have to watch what they put into their body. Too much junk food and not enough water will slow them down, and possibly make them sick. They have to stretch before and after to avoid pulling muscles, and they have to stay committed to a daily routine. No one wakes up one day, and without any training goes out and runs a marathon. Why not? Because our body’s cannot accomplish such an amazing feet without months of preparation. You have to build up stamina, get calluses on your feet, build muscle, and work up the self control to continue even when you want to stop. It’s the same with the Christian life. We don’t wake up one day and just decide to stop sinning and be this awesome person who puts others before ourselves, and is always loving, never hateful, never bitter, always truthful, and always compassionate. It just doesn't happen, because our bodies, our minds, our hearts, are naturally sinful. It takes faith and perseverance, a lot of prayer and dependence on God. We trust that he is training us for this race. That he is giving us the tools we need, that he is strengthening our self control. We trust that he is going to see us through the end, but we have to understand that we have to work hard to get to the end. And we have to protect ourselves from bad habits and patterns that are going to slow us down. So lets look at the good habits we need to adopt in order to be the best runner, and running partner that we can.

1.       Encouragement / Support.

As mentioned earlier, I hate working out. However, I am much more likely to follow through with a fitness plan when I have someone that is doing it with me. That way we can hold each other accountable and encourage each other when the other wants to quit. When you are married you have someone to partner with in every aspect of life. Do you need your husband to get you through the race? No. God is more than we will ever need when it comes to love support, and encouragement. We should never look to our husbands to be the sole provider of this in our lives. Nor should we expect ourselves to fill our husband’s every need in this area. God is always the one you should look to, but I like to see it more as God using my husband to fill my needs. That is not always the way God chooses to fill those needs, but it is certainly a way in which he often chooses to bless me. Likewise, I want to be the avenue in which God chooses to bless Jon with encouragement and support. I want to be available for God to use me in my husband’s everyday life. But in order to give out love, encouragement, kindness, and compassion, you have to be filled with these things first. It’s a beautiful cycle of us going to the father to be filled, and then turning around and pouring that out into other people in our lives. Make a habit of going to God often with prayer and petition (Philippians 4:6) and getting in the word to hear God speak and be reminded of his grace, love, and mercy, and who you are in him. When both you and your spouse are doing this then you are able to give to each other. When one gets down, the other has the strength to pick them up. Build yourself up in Christ so that you may have the strength to build others up.

2.       Keeping pace.

Since running has never been my choice of exercise, I am not 100% sure of what one looks for in a running partner, but I would think you would want someone who kept pace with you. Someone that doesn’t slow you down, or leave you in the dust, but rather runs with you; when running together you each push the other to do better, to run faster, to run longer. That’s what I want in a life running partner. I pray daily for both mine and my husband’s personal relationship with God. I want us both to grow together, to help each other draw near to Him. In order to maintain a healthy growing relationship that is an earthy picture of Christ’s love for his church, we must both move forward. One of us can’t be left behind. We have to push the other to run faster, longer. This is why me and Jon have developed the habit of getting in the word together every night. While I hope that we are both seeking him on an individual level, I think it is also important that we seek God together. That way we know where the other one is, how they are doing, how they are feeling. We read one chapter a night. Just one. And then we talk about it. We talk about what it means to us, how we interpret it, how it challenges us. It takes us about 15 minutes before we go to bed. 15 minutes a day isn't very much; I am sure even the busiest of people can find 15 minutes. This brings us closer to God, but also closer to each other, and keeps us on the same track. This way we aren't each running a separate race, but the same race, together.

3.       Fighting till the finish.

It is much easier to NOT finish a marathon than it is to finish one. But the reward is at the end, so if you want your medal, you have to keep going. God tells us that he creating in us the perseverance we need to finish the race, so we can have faith that we do. But I don’t want to just finish, I want to finish well. Life is going to have its fair share of up-hill battles. It’s going to be a fight. But it is a fight that is worth it. Fight for your marriage, for your family, for your relationship with Christ, for your husband’s relationship with Christ. When it’s hard, keep going; when it is easy give thanks and catch your breath! But always run. And don’t just run, run to win.

-holly

photos taken by Jordan Washer Photography