A Royal Marriage

When I awoke this morning, I as millions of others did, logged on to youtube first thing to watch the Royal Nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  I was not disappointed!  From the the moment Kate stepped out of the car at Westminister Abbey to the moment when they shared their first kiss as husband and wife, it was a thing of beauty, and now a wonderful moment in history.

As I watched the historical ceremony unfold at Westminister Abbey today, I noticed many things. Not only how radiant Princess Kate was, the dress was absolutely stunning!  I always say "simple is best", and she wore it with such elegance.  I noticed how nervous she looked right before it was her turn to repeat her vows.  I'm pretty sure William told her she looked beautiful when she stepped up beside him, and at one point ever so smoothly winked at his beautiful bride. I had to watch it a second time to catch all these little tid bits!  It was adorable when they walked out onto the balcony and Kate said "Oh my!" with a look of delightful shock when she realized what looked like all of London had turned out to wish them well.  I thought it was romantic the way William leaned in to say "One more?  One more kiss?" as the crowed chanted for yet another Royal Smooch.  If I'm reading his lips right it looks like that's what he said, or maybe I'm just an incurable romantic!  

A Royal Marriage

As I sat staring at a blank screen, trying to collect my thoughts, the final address given by The Right Honourable. Dr. Richard Chartres keeps going over and over in my mind.  He opened his address with a quote of St Cathrine of Siena "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." Very powerful words for any married couple, but to the future King of England? Even more of a challenge!  I pray he and Kate will one day live up to those words.  I never really thought of marriage as that great a conquest, but can you imagine if every husband and wife made it their goal to allow God to make their marriage what He means for it to be.  What a wonderful world we would live in!  

The reason so many unions do not portray Christ's love and end in divorce is because of selfishness, the Reverend addressed it almost immediately following St. Cathrine's words when he said:

"...the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul, the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully reveled.  In marriage we are seeking to bring each other into fuller life.  It is of course hard to ween ourselves away from self-centerdness and people can do such a thing, but the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary that a solemn decision is made that whatever the difficulties we are committed to the way of generous love."

Truer words have never been spoken!  We all go into marriage wondering what we can get out of it.  I know that when I married my husband, Ben, my thought wasn't "I'm going to be the best wife I can be and make Ben so deliriously happy that he'll never be in a bad mood!"  Ben and I were talking about the selfish mindset we all have when we go into a relationship. It's all about what we can get out of a relationship what "can this person do for me" "How can they make me feel?" It's never, "what I can give to this relationship?"  The sad thing is we live in a "me society".  We're always running so fast about our lives that we rarely take the time to notice others around us, let alone what we can do to enrich their lives.  This mindset is what is killing marriages by the thousands!  We have got to retrain our brains to think about how we can make our spouse happy. We've got to learn what makes them smile, what makes them cry, the things they enjoy doing  and what they love!  

One last quote from the Reverend's final address that stuck with me, "As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there's been a corresponding inflation of expectations, that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life.  This is to load our partner with to great a burden.  We're all incomplete, we all need the love which is secure rather than oppressive.  We need mutual forgiveness in order to thrive.  But as we move toward our partner in love following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light."  Our complete happiness should never be put on the shoulders of a human relationship.  If we are going to have a Royal Marriage, we must also have a deep and meaningful relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone holds the key to our complete happiness. Until we surrender our will to His we will never be able to have the beautiful marriage He desires us to have.  Until we love our mate the way Christ intended, we will never have a heavenly marriage.

I like how Reverend Chartres' talked about a "generous love", a generous love is a love that is given freely with no thought to what you will get in return.  When we learn to love generously that's when we will achieve a Royal Marriage.

My heart felt congratulations go out to Prince William and his Princess Kate.  I pray that they will heed the words of the Reverend and learn to give that generous love he spoke of, for then will they not only have had a Royal Wedding, but also a glorious Royal Marriage.  May God bless you both William and Kate!

As Close as You Want to Be

"We're just not that close."  or "She's just a hard person to be close to."  Have you ever heard some one use one or both of these phrases?  I've used them myself from time to time and I've found them to be slightly flawed in most cases. 

A lot of times what is true is we're as close as we want to be.  So many times we hold people at arms length and then we accuse them of being hard to get to know or hard to be close to.  I've found myself doing this as well.  I'll hold someone at arms length because I don't know how to be close to them or because they just annoy me.  Not very Christlike behavior is it?   I was pretty ashamed of myself when I took a good look at why I wasn't close to certain people and I've determined within my own heart to do better.  Yes, I am finding out that some people are really hard to be close to and they do really annoy me but it does get easier!

Now take all of the above information and apply it to your marriage.  You live with your husband day in and day out, you are completely aware of all his bad habits and annoying little quirks.  How do you react to the knowledge?  Do you hold him at arms length because he grates on your nerves or do you embrace your differences?  I have the best friend in the world who is also a follower of my blog I'll just call her Crystal. (Sorry Crystal, you know I have no imagination!)  Crystal is not perfect and she does not claim to be.  I know a lot of Crystals faults, but I don't dwell on them.  Crystal and I have never really had a heated argument some small disagreements but have never been angry at each other.  Why? Because we value our friendship! 

So many times marriages come to an end because we cannot just agree to disagree and move on!  Why is this so?  We give our friends chance after chance after chance, but when our husbands do something wrong we hold it over his head to be sure he's really sorry.  So many times we with hold our forgiveness because he doesn't deserve it, because "he hurt me".  So you learned a very important thing about your husband, HE'S HUMAN!  Just like your best friend is human!  Why is it so easy to forgive your best friend and completely forget about it but we feel the need to hold mistakes against our husbands for weeks, months or even years?

Proverbs 31:11 says "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her..."  This is something I have been convicted of so many times!  Can my husband trust me with his heart?  Do I let him know that I accept the fact that he's only human and love him in spite of his faults?  I found that the more I accepted my husband completely, the more he has become the man I have always wanted!   You see, I was only as close to him as I wanted to be!  It took me taking a good hard look at myself to realize that my marriage was what I was allowing it to be.  I wasn't letting myself be close to my husband!  I thought I was justified in my treatment of him because he didn't treat me the way I wanted him to treat me.  Oh how childish I was and oh how much time I wasted! 

Yes, your husband my act like a jerk and he may deserve to be treated the way you treat him, but ask yourself this one question.  "What if Jesus treated me as I deserve to be treated?  What if He held my wrongs against me?"  Asking myself this question has not only changed the way I look at my marriage but also how I look at other important relationships. 

In the book "Love and Respect" they refer to this as getting of the "crazy cycle".  I like it!  If we keep reacting out of hurt and giving our husband what he deserves, we're never going to have a good marriage and you can just forget about having a great one.  Someone has to start forgiving! Mine and Ben's marriage has been so much better since I quit wearing my feelings on my shirt sleeve just waiting for him to hurt them again.  There were so many times he was quite confused as to why I was mad at him!  We women do tend to let the little things hurt our feelings, especially during a certain time of the month!  Yes, we are all guilty of this no need to try and deny! (tongue in cheek)  We are confusing, hormonal creatures to our "waffle heads" as I like to call my hubby sometimes.  I took the reference from "Men Are Like Waffles - Women Are Like Spaghetti" by Bill & Pam Farrel.  I've never read the book but caught their interview on Focus on the Family the other day.  Great stuff!  Yes, our guys could probably do with some lessons in being a little more sensitive, as we could use a few pointers in being a whole lot less sensitive.


My challenge to all of us is this question:  "How close do you want to be to your husband?"  And please, for your marriage's sake, be completely honest with yourself when you answer! 

Turn Off the TV!

I am amazed at the amount of grown women now days who are "boy crazy!"  It's one thing to see it on tv but when you see a real live 30-40 year old married, woman look at Justin Bieber, Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson and go gaga, it just kind of gives me that feeling of nausea right before you throw up!  It's absolutely disgusting!  I want to go shake them and tell them to grow up!  What's even more disturbing is that these women have daughters and they take them to stand in line to see Justin Bieber and encourage the madness at a young age.  And we wonder why our little girls are not staying little girls for long.  At age 8-12 I was having a blast running around outside and playing catch with my brothers and I only thought of boys as someone to play softball with.  Now little girls are of that age group are at the salon having their hair streaked and styled then off for mani's and pedi's, their Mom's are sitting right there with them reading her copy of US!

Yes, I know it does sound as if I've gone on a rabbit trail but I haven't.  This post is about marriage!  The point I'm trying to make is this.  So many women have become so wrapped up in the lives of stars and movies and tv shows that they are losing touch with reality!  They're watching these shows and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their own marriages so they live vicariously through the 9 and 12 year olds.  Now before you roll your eyes, I have to be honest with you.  I was one of them! Not the Mom but one of the women.  Which is how I know exactly what kind of impact Hollywood can have on a marriage.  The good thing is I had only been married three or four years when I started to realize what was happening.  Thank God I a woke up!  My husband and I got rid of all our movies and stored the monitor away for a solid year or more because of the damage it was doing to our marriage.  I had started looking at the lives of these people in movies especially the male stars and thinking, "I wish my husband was romantic like that..."  "I wish my husband would treat me like he treats here..."  if you say that the movies you watch have no affect on how you look at your marriage then you're in denial or your just plain blind! 

Movies and tv shows are destroying marriages and giving kids false expectations of life and what "real" relationships are supposed to be like.  Why do you think teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are so prevalent today?  Teens and adults alike are sleeping around at an alarming rate and we sit back and say that tv has not affected anything.  My husband has the unique job of talking to kids and teens everyday and telling them about the dangers of that kind of lifestyle (Reality Check Inc out of Northwest Arkansas).  We are turning a blind eye to the affects Hollywood is having on our lives and we need to wake up before it's too late. 

This brings me to the second rule in our little game.  Make sure you're sitting down for this one!  Turn off the tv for a week!  Yes, you heard me right.  No tv or movies for a solid week not even so much as a Star or Us magazine. Put it all away and focus on your marriage!  So, on top of erasing negative thoughts with three positive things about your husband, you are adding the NO TV rule as well.  I know, you think you'll go into withdrawals but you won't!  I promise you will survive and your marriage will be better for it.  Who knows you may completely quit watching movies as a result.  Once you stop putting a non realistic view of marriage and relationships and get back in touch with reality you'll be amazed at how deceived you were, believe me, I've been there! 

So how about it?  Are you up for the  challenge?  You can do it!  Just remember it takes time.  You won't have a great marriage overnight, it took a while to get to the point you might be at now, so it'll take some time to get on the road to recovery and reconstruction.  You're not just fixing your marriage, you have to retrain your brain to think realistically again.  Anything worth doing is going to be a challenge!

Don't forget that at the end of each week you're supposed to sit down and write down as many positive things about your hubby that you can think of.  The less time you spend watching movies and trying to "fix" your husbands issues the better your marriage will get, it worked for us!

Convenient

I was thinking today about how many marriages I know of that have fallen apart after only a few short years and it broke my heart.  There are so many of my husband and I's friends who got married around the same time frame (2000-01) as we did and have already ended in divorce.  I'm not writing this to make us sound like we have the "perfect" marriage, but to let you know that your marriage CAN last!

Our lives have become so easy and convenient that when something actually presents a challenge for us we tend to give up on it. I've got so many gadgets at my disposal to help make my cooking and cleaning easier that our home has no excuse to be anything but immaculate; however, as of this moment it's in total disarray!  But definitely not for lack of resources!  My home is this way because I didn't up keep this week, I let other things come before my house.  Had I taken care of each individual mess as it appeared I wouldn't be feeling guilty about blogging when I should be cleaning!

Our marriages are much the same.  We have all the tools we need to have an outstanding marriage. Marriage councilors are a dime a dozen, and there's several new marriage books every year (by the way, I've got dibs on "Marriage For Dummies)  we even have sexual councilors to help us get our sex life back on track.  There are unlimited resources out there that we can tap into that all promise a better marriage.  I hate to break it to you, but no matter how many books you read or councilors you go to you will never have a great marriage if you want to do it the "easy way".  There is no easy way to a beautiful marriage.  Every good marriage takes lots of time and work.  You've got to "want" to make it work, there has to be something in you that wants to work it!  I know that some marriages may have too much baggage to work out, maybe your husband was/is abusive or a cheater. I'm not saying stay in a dangerous situation.  If your husband hits you DO NOT stay in that marriage!  He must get some serious therapy before you should try to work on saving!

I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy up all the marriage/relationship books or start going to a  councilor.  Although if you are having serious issues that's definitely advisable!  I think that romantic movies and novels have put false expectations in many women's minds.  We've got it in our heads that our husbands have to make grand gestures all the time and daily woo us and sweep us off our feet.  I was once told when I was a teenager.  "You're not going to find a perfect guy out there, and if you do what makes you think he's gonna want you?"  I admit that does sound a bit harsh but there is an element to truth to that statement.  We're waiting on our husbands to reach "perfection" and we forget about the fact that we've many issues ourselves.

You've heard the saying "you are what you eat." I say "your marriage is what you make it!"  If you are feeding your marriage all the junk the Hollywood puts out on a regular basis you will eventually become dissatisfied in your own marriage and begin picking away at all the habits that annoy you about your husband.  Instead of being focused on the things about him that you fell in love with you will suddenly become totally aware of his shortcomings and failures.  He'll become distant because his sick of the nagging and you'll become increasingly lonely when he's out with the guys or traveling on business until one day you wake up and you don't have a clue why you married this stranger!  Concentrating on the negative WILL have negative results.

My challenge to you is a simple little game:  for one week every time you think of one negative thought about your husband for any reason you must erase it with 3 positive.  At the end of the week sit down and write a list of all the positive things about your man.  Don't rush through it!  If you have to take all day do it, ponder it and each time you think of another wonderful or maybe just good thing about him write it down.  Next week I'll add another rule to the challenge.  Since there are four weeks each month there will be four steps to the challenge.

As I said in my first post "What If" a marriage is a two way street and there needs to be give on both ends, but someone has to start it, why not you?!

India

Out on ministry

Two years ago I had the privilege of going to India with my husband for a missions trip.  It was my first, but my husband had already been to India two times before and to at least two other countries at that time.  As you can imagine, it was a bit nerve racking for me being out of the USofA  for the first time.

The wonderful thing about going on the missions trip was that we were thrown together with no kids for 16 days!  I'm not going to say that I didn't miss my kids.  I cried just about every day because they're such a part of me.  I will always be grateful for that time with my husband though.  I came back home and went through withdrawals when Ben went back to work!  We'd spent so much positive time together so when we got home I didn't want to let that go.  Our love, our relationship changed then and I couldn't have been happier!  Because my husband is in his element in a foreign country, I depended completely on him to make the decisions.  I think I may have drove him crazy because wherever we went I was right no his heels!

I remember one experience when we were in Mumbai that still makes me smile.  We were preparing to cross a very busy street to get back to our hotel on the other side.  If you've ever been to a foreign country, the first thing you notice is that their traffic laws are a little bit different from ours here in America in that, THERE ARE NO TRAFFIC LAWS!  It's every man/woman for themselves.  As we were standing there getting ready to cross when the next break in the stream of cars came, Ben leaned over to me and said "stay right with me!" Very needless instructions at that point! Seriously, did he really think I was going to lollygag around and chase butterfly's? I'm sure I gave him a look that said he was completely insane to think that I would risk crossing that street on my own!

Down the street from our hotel

Going to India put me in a place that I was out of my element and was forced to depend completely on my husband!  I'm sure some women would think that I was weak because I was so vulnerable and dependent on a man.  Say what you will!  I needed that time and our marriage reached a whole new level while we were there.  I fully expected to just go back to the same ol' same ol' where our marriage was concerned, but it never did.  Now I live for the weekends not because we have such an exciting life, but because I thoroughly enjoy the times when my husband is at home and we're together as a family!

So many women now days have the mindset that they'll lose their identity if they get married and depend on their husband.  They want to be in control of their lives or their "destiny".  A lot of women are choosing to keep their last name when they get married now, they don't want to take on their husbands because they just might "lose themselves".  Do you want to know my opinion on the matter? Since this is my blog you're going to get my opinion whether you want it or not!  These women are very self conscious and insecure.  If a woman is secure in herself she shouldn't mind giving up her name to take her husbands.  A secure person does not worry whether they are perceived as weak or not, they really don't care what others think!

Five years ago when I came to the end of myself, I had no idea where my new found joy would lead.  But as I sit here in my chair with a cup of coffee and can say truthfully, I am happier than I ever dreamed I could be!  I have the love of a man who keeps his promises and treats me way better than I deserve. I never used to believe in fairy tales until I began living one.  My concept of them just changed.  I am living happily ever after. What's sad is that so many people don't realize that we make our "happily ever after".  No, my husband and I don't live in a Utopia that's perfect and never and unkind word is spoken.  We don't agree on everything, but that's part of what makes a marriage interesting and a challenge!  Learning to live with someone with different ideas from your own is wonderful!  What if Ben and I agreed on everything?  We'd get bored!  Something that cracks me up is how that so many people (movie stars mostly) sight irreconcilable difference as their reason for splitting up! That's almost laughable to me because, that's what marriage is supposed to be!  Your differences are what make you!  What if you married another you?  Then you would always know what to expect and would never be challenged to become any better than what you are.

India made me realize so many things about our relationship that I wonder if I would have ever saw had we not gone.  Being out of my comfort zone and being in Ben's made me see him in a whole different light.  And yes I saw myself as well and it changed me.  I loved my husband before India, but now I respect him in a whole new way.  I will forever be thankful for India.

What If?

About five years ago I was horribly sick.  I was sick to death of my marriage!  Don't get me wrong. I love my husband dearly, but I was sick and tired of having just a normal marriage. Over the years I had saw different older couples and thought "wow, I would love to have a marriage like theirs, they're so sweet to each other!"

My husband and I were fine, and our marriage was fine, but I wanted more!  I wanted a marriage I could be proud of, and ours was severely lacking.  We didn't fight like cats and dogs but when we did I'd with hold my forgiveness so he'd know how upset I really was.  I was always questioning his decisions, yes even in front of the kids!  Needless to say I didn't have a very satisfying marriage.

Then one day a good friend loaned me a wonderful book.  Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl and it changed my heart and our marriage!  I only advise you to read this book if your heart is truly ready for change.  Otherwise it'll probably just make you mad.  Debi has some strong words for wives and mothers some of it I agree with and some of it I don't. But for the most part it's some good solid advise!


Reading Debi's book raised a question in my mind that I want to share with you.

What if I give 100% of myself to my marriage?  Yes, marriage is a two-way street and you are both in it together, but here me out!  What if we as women concentrate on our issues and leave our husband issues to God?

I read Linda Dillow's book "What's it like to be Married to Me?" and was challenged to think about my marriage in a whole new light!  I can hear you right now, "well, he should be thinking about what it's like to be married to him!"  I agree, he should!  But go with me on this, what if we start working on becoming what we need to be as wives?  I started putting this to work in my marriage after I read Debi's book and oh what a difference it made in our marriage!  Within a couple weeks my husband started to treat me the way I'd always wanted to be treated.  He started thinking of me and being romantic!  We're still not "perfect" by any means, but the great thing is, we're sure enjoying the perfecting process now. 

I love coming up with new ways to make Ben (my husband) smile!  Guess what, sex isn't the only thing that makes men happy!  Yeah shocker huh?  Here's another tip though, sex is and always will be a very important part of your marriage and should not be just good but great for both of you!   The Bible tells us that we "belong" to each other! 

The whole point of this blog is to show you how we don't have to be just "stuck" in our marriage, but we can have a beautiful relationship with our man that will make the other girls jealous!

So how about it?  Join me in a journey to a "heavenly marriage"!