What God has brought together, we shall never part...

I love my husband. Dearly. Passionately. Whole-heartedly. But I also love him poorly at times.

Marriage is hard. There is no doubt about that. Sharing life with someone is messy. We get to see the up-close parts of a person. The parts that we all try to hide around everyone else: The gross stuff like being so sick to your stomach that it’s coming out both ends, when you don’t quite make it to the bathroom and the vomit somehow ends up all over the floor, the wall and the door. The annoying things like throwing your dirty clothes on the floor instead of tossing them into the basket, or leaving a wet towel strewn on the bathroom floor, instead of hanging neatly on the hook, or waiting until the trash is overflowing before deciding to take it out. The morning breath, farts and burps, dirty hair, a face without make up and an attitude before coffee. And the sinful things that you so desperately want to hide, but cannot because you are living in the trenches with someone day in and day out.

Yes marriage is hard. And it’s hard because you cannot hide who you really are. And why would you? After all, you have vowed to share life with your spouse. And that includes the ugly and the sinful.

But the amazing thing about marriage, a marriage united under Christ, is that there is forgiveness and grace, there is a spirit of being refined and learning from one another and with one another. Being married is hard because you become aware of your immense sin. You really begin to see the ugliness in you. It can be quite startling.

One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 17:3; “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart”. God uses difficult things in our lives to refine us- to bring all of our impurities to the surface so that He can remove them. Before we go through the fire that marriage can sometimes offer, we are unaware of these impurities. How can God remove the sinful things in our lives if we don’t even know they exist?

Marriage is truly a blessing. Through it we can be drawn closer to God.

Of course, there is also the temptation to ignore all of the nastiness, to blame it on your spouse and continue doing things the same way. When something comes up that reveals your true nature, your sinful nature, there is always that desire to hide it. This is certainly true in my life. It takes humility to admit a sin in your life.

But what I have discovered time and again is that God is merciful and He is oh so gracious. And because my husband is filled with God’s love, he is also merciful and gracious to me. When we walk with God, and our marriage is centered in Him, it makes it easier to reveal your true self because you know that there will be grace. Even when your true self can be so ugly.

I thank God for my marriage, for the difficult times that bring redemption and forgiveness and grace. I’m thankful for my husband who also offers me patience and grace and forgiveness when I’m at my ugliest. Marriage can be so difficult, but it is also so much fun. To get to spend your life with someone that knows you so intricately and loves you so passionately is amazing to be sure. I have truly been blessed.

I am thankful for these past 4 years of being married to Phillip. And I am looking forward to spending a lifetime with this amazing man! What God has brought together, we shall never part!

Hurry up...and wait

When I was in college and getting my degree that I believed would eventually get me to the mission field, I was in such a hurry. I hated going to class and learning….oh learning, how dreadful it was! I just wanted to GO! Why did I have to sit through lecture after lecture when I could just hop on a plane and be there?! I seriously contemplated ditching the books and just boarding a plane.

I was in such a hurry to get to where I knew God was calling me.

What I didn’t know at the time was that God had called me to other things as well. Things that would need to take place BEFORE my dramatic move overseas. I gained knowledge and insight about how to actually do ministry in a cross-cultural setting (thanks to my degree!), met my amazing husband, got married, had our first baby and learned a LOT about myself.

Together Phillip and I felt God calling us to be missionaries overseas. We didn’t know where, but we knew we would go. So after the birth of our daughter we hurried to sell or donate all of our things and moved in with family so we could begin support raising.

We were in a hurry to get to where we knew God was calling us.

What we didn’t know was that God once again had called us to something different first. A month after we moved in with my mom we found out we were expecting baby #2. If you’ve ever tried to plan for things and suddenly found yourself pregnant, you can attest to the fact that baby’s bring change. And so God was calling us to wait.

And it was through that period of waiting that we made some amazing friendships at our new church in Indiana. I cannot tell you how blessed I am that we had to wait. God always knows what’s best for us, even when we think that WE do.

After the little guy was born in August we again made haste and raised 60% of our support in the first month! It was amazing and we just KNEW that God was calling us to go now. In January we packed our bags and made a long cross country move to Texas. We continued to busy ourselves with the work we needed to accomplish so we could leave the country in August.

By May, when we still only had 75% of our budget, I was getting discouraged and doubtful. I thought God had wanted us to go now? I thought this was HIS plan? I prayed “God if you want us to go, you have to make a way!”.

I am in a hurry to finally get to where I know God is calling us.

I was growing tired of all of the hurry up and waiting scenarios. When would God finally allow us to go?! And then a very dear friend gave me a book by Oswald Chambers. Growing Deeper with God is the book and the first pages I read really opened my eyes to some new truths about God.

God is not in a hurry.

Chambers wrote about how Moses had a calling, a desperate desire to free his people from slavery. This was a God-given desire. God also wanted the Israelites to be free from the Egyptians. And I know the story of Moses and the Israelites, but the reality of what happened next has never hit me like it did when I read this book.

After Moses killed the Egyptian and fled, he was terribly discouraged. Chambers writes “God allowed Moses, the only man who could deliver his own people, to be driven into the desert to feed sheep—forty years of blank discouragement” (p. 16).

Wow! God had a plan for His people. He knew exactly what He wanted to do and who He was going to use to accomplish it. And He waited 40 years! God is certainly not in a hurry.

When I think about that story, it helps to put my own life into perspective. I honestly don’t know what the future looks like. I have a dream, I have desires, and I have wants. But right now, in this moment, I am trying my best to wait on God’s timing. If we go in August, fabulous! I’m all in. I’m so excited and I’m ready. If it’s later on down the road…even if its years down the road, fabulous! I know it’s because God has called us to something different first. And it will be an amazing journey!