“I am going to take the boys and pick up Sweet Pea.  See you when you get home.  Drive careful“.

His lips brushed my forehead and he headed out of the lodge with our three sons in tow.  All four of them had rosy cheeks from the windy night of snow tubing we had just enjoyed.

I had a van full of teen moms to chauffeur home so I waved at my hubby and smiled at my boys as they piled into our car.

“How long have you been married?” she asked. “You make it look so easy.”

The first part of the comment was not hard to answer.  I’ve been married since I was eighteen.

But, easy?

Hardly.

I prayed a silent prayer before I answered her question and addressed the questioning in her eyes.

“Well, we have been  married for almost 14 years”, I replied.  “And it isn’t ever easy but it has gotten easier over time.”

I was able to take a few moments and explain how our marriage was difficult with a capital D for the first few years.  I brought a lifetime’s worth of baggage and he had his fair share as well.

But, God.

I was saved 2 years after we got married and my husband the following year.  We can look back now and see that the condition of our marriage is directly correlated to whether we allowed God into the equation.

We ended the conversation with her saying she hoped that kind of love was out there for her.

Our brief conversation was an eye opener to me. The world is watching how we, as believers, handle our marriages.

Each and every day I have a choice.  To just go with the flow and see how things turn out or to purpose in my heart to be the wife God created me to be and tap into the strength available through Him to do so.

I don’t often view my marriage as a testimony but it is. I should.

Daily, my children and the girls I work with are looking to see if this love thing, the way God designed for it to be, is real.  Can two people make it work for the long haul?

I am so thankful that my eyes were opened to this reality.

My marriage is speaking to hearts… the question is, do I like what it says?

I pray for marriage everyday.  My marriage, my children’s future spouses, my friends marriages and marriage in general.  God designed this special union to illustrate the way Christ feels about the Church.  What could be more special than that?

While I pray for marriage everyday, I am not good at being married everyday.

Sometimes, when you have been married as long as we have {will be 15 years in July}, you tend to get irritated by the little things that you thought were adorable when you first met.

For instance, I can not stand the way my husband chews.  Simply can NOT take it.  And, I don’t like food in the bed.  So, when he brings his nightly bowl of cereal into the bedroom, my claws come out {good thing I bite my fingernails}.

I write that and then think of the ways I fail at this marriage thing and realize that I need to focus on the good {and there is SO much good}.

To be completely honest, I am difficult to live with most days and exceptionally difficult to live with the other days.  This is not a shocking fact to those that know me well. However, some of my readers might be surprised to learn that I am a moody, tightly wound woman with high expectations of myself and others and the person that sees the ugliest side of me is my hubby.

Ladies, seriously, the man is a saint. I work crazy, bizarre hours in this full-time ministry life.  When I am not away from the house completely, I am tethered to my computer or cell phone.  I am also chronically ill so after the energy I expend on other things, there is not much left over for housework and being domestic. 

Mike loves me enough to let me be the Melissa that God created me to be.  He allows me the freedom to pursue my passions.  He is incredibly generous with his time, money and heart.  He extends grace when I am frazzled and cranky.

We had an impromptu date night on Friday.  Taking the time to listen to him, to spend time with him without the interruptions of kids, work and other craziness was refreshing.  Today I recommit in my heart to focus on the good.

There is so much good!

What do you love about your husband?

This month, I wanted to continue that conversation in a more practical way.  Let’s talk about how to teach our boys about the concept of covenant from a young age so that when it comes time to explain the marriage covenant and God’s views on sexuality, the concept is already on their hearts and minds.

The word for covenant translates to “a binding agreement”, according to dictionary.com.  If you look up the origin of the word, you could add serious or solemn to that definition to fully understand the Biblical translation.

What are some situations where we could illustrate this principal to our kids in everyday life?

To read the rest of this post, please head over to The M.O.B Society

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s culture and society has lost sight of the seriousness of the covenant of marriage and the role of sex. Sex is symbolic of a covenant between a married man and his wife. A covenant that we will be held accountable to one day.
In a culture where sex is viewed casually and more than half of marriages end in divorce, we as moms need to teach our boys about covenant….

You can read the rest of this post at The M.O.B Society, where I write the monthly column, Tackling “the talk”.

Day 9: Something that makes my life easier

There are many things but I want to share a website with y’all that has been a life saver for me and my family these last few months.  It is called Takethemameal.com.  While I have been recuperating from all these surgeries, friends and church members could sign up to bring us a meal.  The site would send me an email to let me know who to expect and what they were bringing. It was a true God send! {and I appreciate each and every person that took the time to cook for our family more than they will ever know}

Day 10: A photo of then and now

This instructed us to post a photo of us that is more than 10 years old and a current photo

The hubby and I on our wedding day 7/6/97

I was 18 when we married and Matthew was baking in my tummy.  Jared was 13 months old and had just started walking.   I thank God that He found us broken {about six months later} and became the third strand of the chord in our marriage. He is the only reason we are still together {and happily, I might add} 14 years later.

Mike and I this summer 6/11

Day 11: Favorite Band/Artist

Without a doubt, Natalie Grant is my favorite artist.  Her music speaks to my heart and her heart for helping others endears me even more.

Day 12: Something that I am particular about

To be honest, there are many things I am particular about {hello, recovering Type-A here} but the list has gotten smaller over the years.  If I needed to name one thing it would be my pantry.  When things are on the wrong shelf, or not in the proper container it makes me anxious and irritable.  Same thing with the refrigerator and my cabinets.  Maybe I am just particular about my kitchen LOL

Okay, I am caught up and I am putting the rest of these challenges in draft form so I don’t neglect to answer the rest of the questions.

Hope you are having a great Saturday!

“Let me tell you something, Church. The term marriage has been tainted, scarred, and made a mockery of by the adulteress who willingly accepts a man from a troubled marriage. Marriage has been burnt alive by porn addiction and selfish husbands. Marriage has been destroyed by unforgiving wives and a blatant unwillingness by both parties to lay down their lives. Marriage has not been ruined by the gay community. And if we truly, not self righteously but truly, want to return marriage to its original sanctity, the fight, the cleansing and purifying, has to begin within the church.”

Please go read this post in it’s entirety at Kingdom Twindom.  Thank you for your willingness to say the hard things, Sarah!

And, another post that has me nodding in agreement is “An Apology to Democrats and Jesus” over at Marla’s blog.

Fourteen years ago, finding a brunette {because I am not blonde} cake-topper bride was a huge priority in my life.  On the eve of making the biggest commitment of my life.

Thankfully, my grandparents rose to the challenge and scoured stores in the four-state area to find me a brunette bride and a dark haired groom cake-topper and all was right with my wedding.

I look back now and chuckle to myself.  I thought it was all about the wedding.  The perfect day I had dreamed about since I was a little girl.  Finding my Prince Charming.  The white dress, the heart shaped tiers of the cake, the bouquet…it was all important to me. 

Now, I have come to realize that the important things in marriage are far different than the wedding.

The two becoming one is a process that is not completed with the utterance of the words “I do”.  It is the beginning of a lifetime journey.

On my 14th anniversary I wanted to share a few things I (we) have learned along the way….

• Be quick to apologize.  We are both the firstborn in our families of origin.  We are both choleric [fill in the blank of your favorite personality profile for Type A].  Bottom line: we are both stubborn as all get out.  When we were first married, it was far more important to both of us to be right than to have unity in our relationship.  Our relationship really began to grow when we learned the value of an apology, the knitting together of hearts that takes place when you put your pride aside and put the other person first.
• Be quicker to forgive.  It is so easy to get your feelings hurt in marriage.  We spend more time with our spouse and they know us better than anyone else.  They know what buttons to push to elicit a reaction.  And, sometimes {just keeping it real} I am being ultra sensitive or irritable and just about anything Mike said would make me upset.  Instead of making a mountain out of a mole hill moment, I have learned to forgive and let go of so much more than I was able to when we were first married {and so is Mike}.  Most of the time, I take my hurt feelings to God and ask Him to show me how to be forgiving and gracious towards my husband.  (Colossians 3:13 is a favorite verse of mine about this topic)
• Make alone time a priority.  When our kids were little, we had a standing date night.  We have gotten away from the structure of that but still make an effort to have time, just the two of us, as frequently as possible.  We pursue shared interests by reading a book together or a concert, we shop together and run errands holding hands, we ride Mike’s Harley in the beautiful countryside that we are blessed to live in.  We take weekend trips at least once a year to reconnect and spend time making sure the other knows how much they are loved.  The truth is that the devil hates marriage.  Any fissure or crack in the foundation of your marriage leaves room for the enemy to creep in and sabotage.  The only way to shore up the cracks and fissures is to know that they are there in the first place.  In order to communicate those types of issues to Mike, I need time away from the busyness and distractions of life.  Alone time {with your spouse} is a must!
• Have God at the center of your union.  God has to be number One in my life, in Mike’s life and in our life together in order for our marriage to be all that it is designed to be.  Those times in our lives when we have had serious issues in our marriage are directly correlated with times we were not putting God first.  It is that simple.

What are some ways you keep your marriage a priority?  I would love to hear!

Tonight, we are headed to our favorite hibachi restaurant for an evening of celebration.  Happy anniversary to my sweet {long suffering} hubby!

Satan had robbed me of the belief that I deserved love.  In fact, I was convinced that love didn’t really exist.  If a man purported to “love” me, if meant that he wanted something from me.

I was on my own, figuratively and literally. I rented a room in an apartment.  I walked to work the drive thru window, saving every penny for the baby that would be joining me soon.

And, then I met Mike.

Mike with Sweet Pea

I wasn’t looking for the one.

I was not looking for a mate, let alone a soul-mate for life.  A life-long commitment was too grand a concept for my mind and my heart to fathom.

The first time I met him, he was washing dishes shirtless.  And, my first thought was not how good he looked without his shirt {although that was my second thought}.  My first thought was “he cleans”.

He also had a job.  and a car! He was truly a package deal, considering the men/boys that had been in and out of my life in recent months.

Despite the fact that neither of us were looking for a long term relationship…that is exactly what evolved.  I was not with him because I was madly in love {I wouldn’t allow myself to feel that type of emotion}, I was with him because he was safe.  Secure.  Gentle.

We met in January of 1996 and four and a half months later, he was by my side as my baby was born.  He has been Jared’s dad since he was in my tummy. {He legally adopted him in 1998}

We moved in together and six months later I was pregnant with Matt. {He didn’t leave} We married in July of 1997. Matt was born in September.

After Matthew came, somewhere deep inside me, a light turned off.  All I saw was darkness.  I now know that having babies as a teenager, a mere 16 months apart, contributed greatly to the post-partum depression that sucked me into the pit.

This was not what Mike had signed up for.

A mean, mad, girl-woman with little motivation and lots of mood swings.

I am so blessed because the one I was with loved me anyway.  He had made a commitment to me.  For two kids that had grown up with parents that did not honor commitments, saying “I do” meant something to us.  {Something that had more to do, at that moment, with stubborn determination than true love}

Thankfully, Jesus found me during that dark time.  He shined Light into our lives and our situation.

I crept out of the pit, grasping tightly to the hands of my husband and my Lord.  We emerged from the pit together.  And God knit our hearts together during that time as only He can.

Our marriage did not become good overnight.  We had to learn to let the Light shine in to every crevice of our hearts and our relationship.

I had to work through layers of a calloused heart to learn how to love another person.  Mike had to learn how to trust that I wasn’t going to leave when things got hard.

On July 6th, we will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary.  We joke that in the wedding pictures you can’t see the baggage that we both drug into our relationship.

We would not be here, together and stronger than ever, if we had not relinquished that baggage to Jesus.  Things would have been easier if we had relinquished it at once, rather than one suitcase at a time.

But, the lessons learned in the surrender have become the glue that keeps us together.

This married life is not what either of us would have ever imagined we were signing up for when we said our vows.

Because who can truly imagine all that God has in store for the surrendered heart?   Mike is the one God fashioned for me.  Before either of us ever came to be and ever came to know Him, He knew.  He had a purpose and a plan far greater than either of us.  He had a plan and purpose for both of us together.  I may not have known Mike was the one in the beginning, but I am so grateful God knew.

Now, I counsel young mom’s who think that no one will ever love them, that God has “the one” for them already selected.  Stop seeking love and let love find you.

Why do we run on empty and then wonder why we are stressed and burnt out?

This was a question posed by my pastor a few months ago.  I wrote it down because, while an obvious sentiment, I forget this principle far too often in my busy life.

I have been running on empty lately.  Two kids are graduating, vacation plans, physical therapy and other doctor appointments,15th birthdays, church obligations, ministry work, writing–you get the picture.

Something’s gotta give.

Unfortunately, it has been my marriage and my relationship with God.  I was reminded by a good friend that we can say that God is our number one priority and our spouse is a close second but if the way we spend our time and energy do not reflect that, we are fooling ourselves.

I was in a rush this morning and knew I needed to stop and get gas in my van.  Imagine my delight when I looked down and saw that the gas gauge read full.  My sweet hubby, who knows my primary love language is acts of service, must’ve snuck off to the gas station up the street last night to make my life easier.

My tank is full.

Then, I wonder is Mike’s tank full?

Probably not..since he has not been my primary focus lately.

Excuse me ladies, I have a love tank to fill.

This post is linked to Wifey Wednesdays.

Blogging has been scarce lately but I am slowly getting back in the swing of things, including joining in for Wifey Wednesday posts about marriage.  You can search for other marriage posts I have written by typing Wifey Wednesday or marriage in the search box in the right hand corner of your screen.

This week’s topic is one I am unfortunately familiar with-  Having an active sex life with my spouse and a chronic illness.

This is soooo not easy.

Photo credit

As most of you know I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in January 2008 and systemic lupus in October 2009.  My health is a roller coaster and even on my “good” days I am exhausted and hurting by bedtime.

Thankfully, I have a patient and understanding {and just all around awesome} hubby.  But, sex is still crucial to the health of a marriage.  So crucial that I am willing to write about it on my blog and share things that have worked for me.

When I was first diagnosed with MS, I was bedridden and couldn’t see out of my left eye.  Not exactly oozing sex appeal.  Staying away from intimacy though affected me as much as it did my hubby, although in different ways.  I needed the assurance that I was still desirable and he needed the closeness that sex provides.

Since that time we talk a lot more about our sex life.  We are intentional about making time for it.  We are aware of the value of cuddling and expressing physical love to each other even when the sexual act is not possible because of my health issues. And, most importantly, I pray about my sex life.

I ask God to provide me with energy, with libido, with desire for my hubby on those days {that can turn into weeks and months if we are not intentional} that I feel I can’t muster it.  And, friends, God is faithful to bless the physical component of your marriage.  He created it, after all.

He hasn’t failed me yet.

The relationship I have with my husband is just as special to God as it is to me.  He designed Mike to be my life companion, knowing as only God can, that I would have physical ailments.  He is bigger than all of my limitations and fatigue.

And for that I am thankful!

This post is linked to Wifey Wednesdays, (In)courage and Faith Barista’s Faith Jam.