The Big M-word (Marriage)

This is a long one... so.... tough through it with me haha.

I made a conscious decision about half-way through high school that I wanted to withhold from "finding the man of my dreams" until after college, so that I could focus on my career and get somewhere in life. When I graduated high school, I was surprised to see so many people my age getting married. My parents were happy to hear that I thought they were all crazy-- I mean, if I got married at that time I would be giving up on all my dreams and what-if's and could-be's. I couldn't imagine giving up my dreams to go to France and living on my own to find my identity out here in this crazy world. I'm a pretty independent person who finds joy in doing things on her own, so I looked forward to taking on the world by myself.

I seriously judged these people for jumping into marriage so young.

This world preaches to us to wait for marriage because it supposedly "is the end of your life as you know it". Marriage is when you have to give up your dreams and get into the hard stuff of life. You are forced to think about the negatives of marriage-- what if you hate it? What if you marry the wrong guy? What if you get a divorce? And really, the only thing that people enthuse about marriage is the wedding. You have to have the perfect dress, the perfect venue, the perfect reception. However, perfect marriages are not something that is talked about a lot.

You see some of the older couples who have just celebrated their 50th anniversary and you think, "Wow. Thats really great." yet everywhere you turn in your generation, that sacred idea is being torn apart. Marriage is only a certificate these days, not a covenant that God has ordained.

I went through my first year of college confident that I would be single for the rest of my life (haha). Not finding the man of my dreams would probably lead me to finding the man of my nightmares if I was lonely enough. And there were days (lots of days) where I was just plain lonely. For a girl who hasn't had many romantic relationships, its easy to think that Prince Charming just isn't out there. I fought between "WHERE IS MY PRINCE?!" and "I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN WHO DON'T NEED NO MAN." My friends and roommates can attest to this. All my life, I've been fed by the ladies in my life that we grow up to become wives and when you grow up hearing "When you're married one day.... " you look forward to finding your mate. Even when your worldly view doesn't want anything to do with marriage yet. Its confusing.

So the summer after my Freshman year, I find him. Yes, him. It was a whirlwind of my world turning upside down (in a good way) and making me rethink all of my life plans. You know, people say that fairytale love stories aren't real anymore, but I'm here to say that ours is. Falling in love with him was easy. Uncomplicated. Graceful. I didn't have the anxiety of whether he felt the same or not, he was always open and honest with me and that was the foundation of our relationship. Within a month, we knew that we had found the person we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with. Meaning, marriage was spoken of that early. To anyone reading this, I'm sure you gasped.

"What?! You think you're going to marry someone after you've been dating a month?! You're stupid, immature, and full of it."

I struggled with this. I was preaching the "You just know" mentality while the world was telling me "You don't know someone until you've been with them at least 2 years". And I know its true that you don't truly know everything about someone until you've been together for a long time, but it was different for us. We did everything possible to make sure there were no walls between us. We were 100% transparent. 100% honest. 100% giving. 100% aware of what was ahead. Immediately, we were in prayer of our future. Our present. Our knowledge gained from the past. It was a long-distance relationship that summer because he lived a good hour and a half away but we stayed in contact throughout every day as much as possible. Talked on the phone every night as we went to sleep.



I found this quote by Elbert Hubbard which kind of jarred me.

The one thing that stood out to me in this quote is this: since when is the whole idea of marriage a mistake? Sure, if you're getting married for the wrong reasons. But if you love someone, truly love someone and can't go a day without them and would do anything for them- why is marrying them a mistake?

Here's what I know to be true about marriage: The sooner you get married, the sooner you can stop living for someone other than yourself. Marriage is not selfish- its the exact opposite.

It is 100% accepted between my man and I that our covenant to each other begins now. I've been preached to that the engagement is when you decide whether or not you're actually going to be with this person forever but our relationship has been different than anything anyone has ever preached to me. 

We didn't start out normal. We found each other through uncoincidentally attending the same church, barely knew each other on our first date, prayed with each other in the parking lot of Amelies on the first date and within two weeks, we were convinced we were falling deep in love with each other. Within a month, we knew God had led us to each other for a divine purpose. Telling my parents that I knew I was going to marry this man they didn't know was hard. Lectures and arguments proceeded. We couldn't really see eye to eye on the matter because frankly, they weren't in the midst of our relationship so they didn't really know our hearts. 

I expected judgement from everyone. Mainly for the fact that I was once that judger. Not everyone has a love story like ours and not everyone can understand or empathize with it. And relationships are between 2 people (excuse me, 3 people including God)-- not 500. So when people were surprised to find us in a serious relationship months into it, I didn't take offense. Everyone on Facebook simply does not need to know when we make promises to each other. 

Were it not for me being in college and my entire family telling me everyday we have to wait until I'm done with school until we get married, we probably would have been engaged by 6 months. We tried to be cautious, however. We tried to take it one day at a time. We accepted that us getting married was an event far far away... until the days away from each other became harder. Goodbyes felt impossible to say. We felt so drawn to each other, we literally would cry before parting if we knew it would be more than a week before we saw each other again. I never thought I was the person to have that sort of relationship... that feeling like you literally can't live without someone. But there I was... and still am. We got to a point that the word "goodbye" was not an option, and replaced it with "See you soon". Marriage began to creep to the forefront of our hearts.

1 Timothy 4 says "Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead. They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer."

Over a year ago, if you had told me my brain was in a tug of war with my heart over marriage, I would have scoffed. But I had become a different person, I had a different mindset. I knew we would have little support from the world if we decided to get married sooner than later. The troubles of this world can overshadow the Godly decision to take part in a covenant. Reality is tough. We weren't blind to the high possibility of pain and failure.

In the midst of this tug of war within both me and my man, we witnessed the sacred covenant of marriage being ripped to shreds all around us. We agreed that God had put us together to lift up His original creation of marriage... to proclaim the goodness of God in a covenant. Knowing how flawed we were (are), knowing how often we fail our Savior... we knew this was a chance to bring glory to Him. Maybe in a way that wasn't pleasing to everyone, but in a way we knew was pleasing to Him.

God has revealed so much about myself and more importantly, His character, through our relationship. I thought I was patient, I was shown how impatient I am. I thought I was a decent person, I was shown how truly self-serving I am. Despite all my faults, I was given so much grace. Not only through my sweet Savior Jesus, but through the love of my sweet man, who took all of my crazy in his hands and loved it selflessly, with grace. I was given a man who proclaimed Jesus over us from the beginning and through every day of our relationship. 

Today, I'm smiling with gratefulness in my heart... for the sleepless nights of prayer, for the days of uncertainty, for the moments of doubt, for the confusion in my mind, for the long...long...long... wait.

Some people have to wait longer. Some people have different circumstances. Some people simply aren't able to get married. I thought that was gonna be us. But I knew God wanted us together and so I knew that He would provide.

Today, that gratefulness in my heart for the difficult past few months is because the harvest is finally here. We have support, we have encouragement, we have loving people loving us through this decision and I can't help but cry such happy tears. I am filled with such joy.

I'm engaged. And soon, I will be married to the best man I've ever known. 

And as wonderful as this journey has been, it also hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies.
We've had to really trust God with our situation. It hasn't been easy. We had OUR plans, but God seems to always have a different one. And its always better.

Every difficult time in my life is defined by this: a lack of trust. 

God wanted me to trust Him with everything surrounding marriage before He could give us the opportunity to get married. 

And I'd be a liar if I said I completely trust Him with everything. 

I still doubt. I still question a lot of stuff.  

But I also think that God understands my doubt. He understands my questions. He understands my anxiety, and also my family's anxiety. 

But He's here. He always has been and always will be. 

I felt Him that first night in the parking lot of Amelies. I cried the whole way home because I knew that something special--something different --was happening. 

You don't have to believe me. You don't have to support us. 

But my sweet, sweet Father is with us. He is for us. 

And we're asking to take part in a journey that a lot of people depart from before the trip is finished. 

Together, we're standing saying "Here we are God, send US".

With God, ALL things are possible. 

The Struggle.

I'm writing this because I feel if more Christians shared their struggles, we could better learn how to be like Jesus.








This past Sunday I didn't go to church.

"Big woop-dee-doo" you say.

You see, normally, I'm excited to go to church. I love my church. Its something I look forward to.
But this weekend I was feeling broken. Moody, more than anything.
I was feeling angry and I wasn't exactly sure why.
And I had an inner conflict, a struggle, that I felt like I wanted to deal with by myself.
And I also didn't want anyone to tell me what to do.

Tell me, is that why YOU didn't go to church? You were afraid of someone telling you what to do?
You were terrified of the typical church words: "You should ___"?

I'm tired of that.
I've been a Christian for a long time, been involved in a lot of Christiany things, and I've said a lot of Christiany things. But suddenly, I'm tired of it.

And I think thats because what people define as "Christiany" these days is actually just "churchy".

And that has just turned me off.

I've tried to be theological. I've tried to be what people think is a "solid Christian lady" but at the end of the day-- thats not who I am.

I am flawed beyond belief. I am filthy. I struggle with things that I feel like I've been struggling with for far too long, and yet no matter how hard I struggle back, it never seems to subside.

I see people who I love dearly struggle.
Some are people who, like me, have put on the "perfect" face for all of our other Christian friends and family. And they feel that if they shared their struggles, that would cause others to think less of them as Christian individuals.

Why are we this way? I can't help but think of Casting Crown's "Stained-glass Masquerade" and how I used to think so highly of that song years and years ago. But I realize it didn't quite make sense to me then because I wasn't going through the enduring struggles that I am now.
Now, I understand.

I listened to this weekend's sermon just a bit ago, titled "The Same Struggle."
I immediately regretted not going to church. Because it was exactly what I needed to hear Sunday. But Sunday, I didn't want to hear anything.
I didn't even want to hear the voice of God.
I only wanted to hear myself.

You wanna know what my struggle is?
Its the same as yours.
A lack of surrender.
It might be a different situation than yours, but its still the same struggle.
Surrender.

I have many areas of my life that I want to change. Areas that when I look in the mirror sometimes, I just want to break the glass.

Tell me, do YOU ever feel like that?

I know we're all hurting in some way.
Plans falling apart, people dying, relationships crumbling, financial terrors, regrets of past mistakes...

But its all the same. We're all struggling because we were born into a struggle and when we accepted Jesus, we agreed to struggle like He did.

He's struggling with us and for us and all He wants us to do is SURRENDER.

I have a hard time doing that.
Something my pastor said in the sermon rubbed me the wrong way.

"It doesn't matter what opposes me when I already know the outcome." 

No!!! I wanted to shout.
I don't know the outcome!!! It DOES matter what opposes me! I feel like I can't win against this struggle!!! 

But then he said, "The fact that you're still struggling is a sign that you're gonna make it."

I am? But why is it so hard right now to get through this?

I just wanna be done with school, I wanna get my life started, I wanna do this, do that.. Maybe my struggle will be over when these things end?

No.

I know they won't.

I know all I can do is surrender. Not MY will, but HIS be done.

You see, the outcome pastor was talking about was not the outcome that I'm thinking about.
I see a future in this world- everything I want to be, everything I want to do...
But he was talking about a future out of this world- everything I WILL be in the presence of God.

Sometimes its hard to get my head out of the earth.



I want you to know that I'm there with you.
You don't have to cover everything up to look perfect, because guess what?
None of us are. We've all screwed up big time. We're all messes.

Why can't we all just be messes together?











I really encourage you to watch/listen to this weekend's message from Elevation Church.
God is working.

http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/series/the-struggle-is-the-same/

Are you tired of feeling like you have to be perfect and just want to open up about what you're struggling with? Me too.

Open up with me. Lets listen to each other and support each other, like I know Jesus wants us to do.