The One Month Review

You might have thought I got a new book, med, or workout program to tell you about, but nope. I’m here to give my one-month review of marriage. Because GUYS, I’ve been married one month today. :0

Let me just start out by saying that marriage is literally the best. I love being a wife (and yes, we use husband and wife obnoxiously and don’t care.) But I also believe in full honesty and openness so I want to give you the good parts and the hard parts. I also like to end on a high note, so you get to read the hard stuff first.

I would say that over the last month, the more I grow to love marriage, the more I grow to hate divorce. I get to see firsthand the confusion and heartbreak that it brings to so many people. Our sin brings destruction and I despise it. And I’m oh so thankful for a God who restores, heals, and binds up his brokenhearted people. SO many times I have cried out, “Lord! I don’t have the grace for this! I don’t have the strength to do this task!” And yet every time he has been faithful to supply it. My reliance on the Lord has increased significantly because I absolutely cannot live out of my own strength.

On a practical level, the hardest thing for me so far has been the kids’ schedules. It is hard for me to keep track of when they are here and when they are at their Mom’s house. It’s very hard to let them leave and I actually didn’t expect that. Everyone told me, “Oh that will be so nice! You and Shawn will have time together by yourselves!” Don’t get me wrong- we are very intentional when the kids are away to pour into each other and our friends but we don’t look forward to them leaving. Every time they leave my heart breaks a little and I immediately want them back. It is much harder than I anticipated. So we pray. We pray for the protection of their hearts, souls, and minds. That what they learn here will be brought into their minds wherever they are.

Yet the good parts of marriage far outweigh the struggles. It is a true blessing to live life with your favorite person. We are better together than we could ever be apart. Somehow we glorify the Lord in a more complete way as ONE than we did separately.

It is a special joy to be at home every day when Shawn gets off work. That’s my favorite part of the day. When he walks in the door and says, “Hello, wife!” (Did I mention we love those words?) Shawn is a special kind of person who helps with everything. From cooking to dishes to laundry to cleaning the pellet stove- you name it and he will jump in. I love that he disregards all stereotypes and thoughtfully helps wherever needed.

It is a blessing to have children to take care of. For someone who currently can’t have children, this is a very precious thing. I know this sounds weird, but every time I fold the kid’s laundry, I cry. It is not a chore that has to be done, but a sign that I have someone to CARE for, little ones to love and show Christ to. It is a privilege to braid hair, pick out clothes, teach cooking and baking skills, have nerf wars, read Proverbs, pray together, and the list goes on and on.

Dear people, please don’t ever see your children as burdens. Dear readers, don’t see your husband as a problem. As the world looks at family in this way, I want to look at them in the way God sees it. HUGE BLESSINGS.

So there you have it. Married life is awesome and I love it. There are definitely hard parts but those things cause me to rely on Christ more and I’m thankful for that. Overall I would have to recommend it- 11 out of 10. 🙂

 

An “Epic” Review

I recently had the blessing to travel across the country for a good friend’s wedding. And by travel, I mean fly, because if you know me you know that I get carsick pretty easily so if it was a road-trip, the word “blessing” would probably have been dropped from that sentence.

Anywho…I always take a book with me when I fly and sometimes I actually read it and sometimes I just sit like a creeper and people-watch. But this time I brought a book I had actually been saving for my next flight, as weird as that sounds. It’s small, short, and even weirder for me, I have NO IDEA how I got it or it’s study guide! So while you may have been thinking I was being stuck up with my blog title, the title of the book is actually Epic, and I couldn’t resist. 🙂

I got through security for my flight pretty fast (because I’m a good rule-follower) and since it appeared that the people-watching chances were slim, I opened the book right up. Seriously guys, I hadn’t even read the back cover. I was going in blind on this one, which is really new for me. It’s by John Eldredge, who I don’t know much about, except he wrote Wild at Heart, which I’ve never read.

The very first line of the book hooked me because he referenced my favorite movie, Lord of the Rings. I was immediately intrigued. He also had a quote by G.K. Chesterton and I thought, “Gosh, he’s off to a great start!” The book is about telling the gospel with more of an “epic story” perspective. I’ve never read anything that referenced SO many well-known movies and books: Chronicles of Narnia, Little Women, Gladiator, Titanic, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Odyssey, Stars Wars, and so many more. It was insane!

It was quite an interesting perspective and while I can’t say I agreed with all the theology (mainly the section on free will), he came at it from an angle that was really different from anything I’ve ever read.

But after a while I started to notice something. It wasn’t quite fitting anymore. Instead of trying to show how the gospel had similar themes to some of our movies, it seemed more like he was trying to make the gospel fit into the movies’ themes. I think he was letting his imagination run away a little bit.

Because while God’s story is incredible, amazing, and (I would even agree, epic,) it’s not one of our movies. It is written by a supreme Creator, not humans. And somehow comparing it to our flawed stories relentlessly gave it less meaning than reading it how it was actually written, in God’s own Words.