Marriage Monday

I missed the last marriage monday!  So I didn’t want to miss this months MM!   This month is an open topic about marriage, so I’ll share a little about what’s on my heart lately.

Having a healthy Christian marriage is no easy task.

Being married isn’t easy on the best of days.  There is always someone else you have to look out for — throw in a few children, some rowdy extra family members and few pets and you’ve got basic marriage.  But how do we do it well, and how do you do it as a Christian?

Well, first and for most is having Christ in your marriage.  Taking your issues big and small to HIM.  Teaching your children to pray, and praying together as a couple and as family are so important.

Right now my goals in our marriage is working on goals.  (isn’t that a paradox? lol) Since Mr. C and I moved out here last year, it’s been a year of change.  Mr. C is back in his home territory (next to his parents) while I’m out of my element learning to be a farm girl.

Mr. C and I are alike in a lot of ways, but we are almost polar opposites in some things.  He’s consistent – I’m sporadic.  He’s blond – I’m a brunette.  When he’s quiet I’m outgoing, and when I’m outgoing, he’s quiet.. I think we complement each other for the most part; but we do butt heads a lot while trying to work on things. We are working on trying to figure out our goals.. more for me because being a mother I sometimes feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.

As you might have read in my review above I touched briefly on my heart for the Ukraine/Russia.  I really feel like we – as a family are suppose to do something with that.  We struggle with where God wants to use us regarding it.  If ministry – on a large scale is something our family needs to be involved in, or are we suppose to focus on just being us… while we are growing little people into productive and hopefully children of Christ (which is a ministry of it’s own, just on a different scale).  I also wonder if my photography is part of that dream/goal, or if it should just be left as a hobby.

I guess I know God knows the big picture.  He knows were he wants us.  Some days I know I don’t listen as well as I should.  And sometimes when we slack off in our marriage and don’t work towards God’s goals instead of just trying to get by, we don’t feel very much like loving each other well.  It’s easy to say “I love you” to each other, but our actions don’t always say it.  If we’re not following what Christ has designed for our marriage (even if we don’t like it somedays) we don’t work well -function properly.  There are many times when we could have walked out on each other, but we haven’t for one reason.  We are committed to Christ and his design for us in our marriage.

I hope that you are committed to Christ and his design for your marriage as well.  I pray that God will bless your marriage and that you will invite him into it fully and acknowledge that He is in control of it.  No matter how much each of us differs from our spouses, God has a plan and design for us in our marriage, and he wants it to thrive!

Marriage Monday ~”The Crazy Way We Met.”

Want this button?
“The Crazy Way We Met.”

Our eyes met across the room.. they looked up and down, and checked each other out… from then on it was love at first sight….

well, okay, that isn’t exactly how we first met… let me see if I can remember!

It was 1993.  I was in high school — seventeen to be exact.   I did a lot of work for my church at that time and worked with a group of other youth.  We had bonded and become great friends… so we often did things together.  My friend Lauria and I were suppose to go to the University campus together to watch the new “Jesus” video that had been released.  She backed out last minute and I really didn’t want to go, but there was a cute guy I knew going (he was the one who invited us)– so I decided last minute to go anyhow.  My mom –yes, my mother dropped me off at his dorm room (hey it was a church friend… ) and we met a group of other people.  He introduced me to a group of his friends (one of which was Mr. C-unbeknown to me), and we went to go watch the movie.

Well, the movie started, but the reel kept breaking, so they took a break.  My friend, Kim (guy) got up to go and talk to some of his other friends, and his friend “Craig” came and sat down beside me.  We started talking, and the movie went back on.  We kept cracking jokes, because the movie didn’t work well, but he stayed beside me the rest of the movie, and ended up driving me home (I know, I know .. taking rides from strange men home… hey it was the 90’s.. and it was a friends friend.. church thing.. I thought it was safe!… didn’t think it would change my life!).  He met my mom; we watched “The Sound of Music” til 3am and than he went home.  I didn’t actually think I’d ever see him again, until he showed up at my door 3 days later because he lost my phone number.

I thought his name was Craig for the first 2 months we saw each other (he never corrected me, or never heard me say his name, I”m not sure lol)… until I went to his work and asked for him, and found out it was GREG!!! (boy was my face red! lol)

Needless to say, we got married almost 2 years later!

We’ve had an interesting marriage.  Ups and downs.  But I think that’s how God has taught us to grow.  If we wouldn’t have changed and experienced life the way we have we wouldn’t have our wonderful family today.  I am blessed that we have been able to work through life together and I am excited to see what God has in store for us for the rest of our lives… never a dull moment!

A funny part about our wedding/buying a house was every house we looked at had a Bible verse on the wall somewhere in the house that said

Matthew 19:5,6

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

How funny is that?

Anyhow, some thing to giggle at:

Our wedding picture. It was 2 weeks after my 19th birthday, he was 22.

Here we are at a marriage retreat; I was pregnant with Miss H.

Here we are at my brother’s wedding (unknowingly pregnant with Master P)

And here we are on my birthday… 32nd… *gulp*

a little heavier, but happy as can be with my life full of God’s blessings, and still married to the smart, happy, sweet man of my dreams.

We definitely aren’t the same kids that we were those many years ago when we got married, but Thank God for that!  Marriage has never been easy, but I think taking the time to laugh at the funny things, and learn from our mistakes makes us stronger and better suited for each other. I think he -God let us marry young and stupid, so we would still love each other so many years from than.. Hard to believe so much has changed, and yet I know I love my husband more today, than the lustful way I loved him when we first got married (he had a cute bum.. what can I say?!).

Thanks for reading! 🙂