A Beautiful Marriage in Process

Hi Friends! 

I am super excited about the book that I started this week called: Praying for Your Husband from Head to Toe.

At the beginning of 2018, God put it on my heart to shift my focus to my mind and my marriage.  

Dave and I have a really good marriage-he's my best friend! But I'd been super distracted for a long time with some other things and the Lord wanted me to give those distractions to Him, let Him handle them, and focus on my amazing husband. 

Honeymoon 2004

Dave and I have been married for almost 14 years and have been through many ups and downs in our relationship. It has not always been easy. I know this is hard to believe, but Dave is not a perfect husband and I am not the perfect wife. Say what?! LOL! But I can honestly say that I love him more now than I did when we were first married! This is because along time ago, two really imperfect, immature, inexperienced, (and might I mention) incredibly stubborn first-borns named Kristin & Dave, decided together that they'd stick it out, do the hard work and cooperate with God to have a thriving marriage. There is always room for growth and improvement so that's why I got this book.  I wanted to be intentional toward Dave and our marriage. And honestly I need a little help and direction in praying for my husband. So that's ALSO why I got this book.  It's packed with wisdom from a long time married woman and has 30 days of specific prayers for your hubby, so it's easy to follow and do each day of the month! A husband could even pray these over his wife too. What a great privilege! God actually created us as wives to be our husband's helper. To be his teammate. To be a warrior for him in our prayer time. God created marriage, and He made it to be AWESOME! But it doesn't come naturally any more than riding a bike or driving a car and it certainly won't grow without nurturing it and making it a priority. You have to put the time and effort into it, not be afraid to seek help when needed and humble enough to go to our Heavenly Father and say "I need You to show me how to do this right!".  And a little side note: it really does change when you have kids. That's not said to scare anyone! It's just that, at least in our experience, you have to discipline yourself to make it a priority even more then. But I think it's really good for all of us. For Dave and I, it's added weights to the barbell of our marriage, making it stronger and more toned and refined. 

Dave and I had an intense conversation recently (aka argument) where both of us felt the need to be heard and validated (SHOCKER!) During which point I felt the need to declare that I was really good at being patient, kind and careful with feelings when it came to our children. To which he very seriously responded: "well, treat ME that way." That's when my eyes were opened and the Lord spoke to my heart about shifting my focus. I realized I gave Dave what was leftover rather than what was the main course. In all reality, my hubby is who I should be the nicest to! He's my number one, just under God. He was there from the beginning. We were just Us first before we became all of us. And I think it's normal when you're in the season of raising children because your focus is diverted in so many directions, and you fall into a habit. But the temperature and tone of your marriage will affect everything in your household, including your kids. I actually thought to myself "how can I have time to nurture my marriage AND be a good momma. But I realized that by taking the time to treat each other with love, honor and respect, it actually overflows in how we parent. Kind of like a trickle effect. By keeping things in proper order, it actually makes room for you to parent really well. I know that might not make sense, but that's just how God works. Everything is a seed or investment, including time. And what an honor and privilege to give our children the gift of two parents who really love each other, who really like each other and honor and respect each other. What a wonderful and powerful return that truly affects the generations to come. I'm so excited about this new prayer journey for the man God gave me and I pray that it becomes a part of my normal day to day life.  I say that, because intercessory prayer has not always come easy for me. It's also a discipline that takes time to develop.  
But anyway,  I really like our marriage and our story. I like the person that God is creating me to be through being married to Dave. Its been both a gentle and aggressive refining of he and I. It's been really good, that's for sure. Dave and I have an amazing story of how God has restored and redeemed many things through our marriage, that I'll share another time. Dave once told me years ago, most likely after one of our many heated arguments in the first few years of marriage, that we can either be happily married or miserably married but either way we're staying married! And I'm thrilled to say we chose happily. I'm a very wordy person, so this was a long digression from "I am so excited about this book I started this week." But that's just how I roll. (Literally I can tell when I've said too many words to Dave and I have to take a pause for him to process, LOL!) There's a quote from the author that sums up how the adventure of marriage has been for us so far:

"I don't have a big bad story of how God took our terrible tumultuous  marriage and miraculously transformed it into a storybook romance filled with white knight rescues, relentless romance, and rides into the sunset as we left all danger and darkness behind. Even though we've had our share of both tumult and romance, our relationship is no fairytale. Our marriage reads more like a daily journal, one page after another, one day after another. Some entries are smudged with tears; some are dogeared as favorites. Some pages of our story are marred by unsuccessful erasures that wouldn't quite rub away the words said; others are finger worn by reading of precious events time and time again." 

Oh the words that have been said! And the "I'm so sorry, please forgive me's" that have followed. Thank God for forgiveness and grace. Thank God for prayer and answers to prayer! Our own personal journey of marriage is becoming a beautiful symphony year by year; an ebb and flow; a writing and rewriting and editing process complete with a Master Collaborator Who is so passionately faithful.  And you know what? The BEST is yet to come!

You see, real success starts in the home. And I've been learning that oftentimes it starts on our knees in prayer for our spouses. There are few things more powerful than that!

So here's to realizing we can't do it on our own and for praying for our husbands (or wives if men are reading this) and reaping rewards from our Heavenly Father beyond our wildest dreams! 

Love, Kristin