joy in the journey - a new series on marriage

i have had it in my heart for some time now to write a series of posts on marriage.  i even considered joining in on the 31 day challenge that so many bloggers did this past october and focusing on 31 days of marriage.  with 5 kids and a crazy schedule in my "real" life, i realized this just wasn't possible.  it is possible, however, for me to write a shorter series on marriage.

so, to kick off this new series let me start with stating clearly that i believe that God always intends marriage to be for our benefit and for our good.  while the circumstances may or may not live up to our ideals of marriage, we can discover depths of joy beyond our expectations.  i am going to dive into different ways i believe you build the marriage that we all desire when we first say "i do."

i don't believe anyone enters marriage planning on either a miserable cohabitation or eventual divorce.  i do believe few couples are fully prepared for the hard work and heart refining nature of marriage.  i believe there are unrealistic expectations for the sacred union, and ideals placed on marriage that mirror more the world around us than the God of the bible.

in this series i hope to:

• encourage those who are in a marriage covenant to invest in and strengthen their marriage.

• give hope and clarity of vision to those who have a marriage that is struggling and give a few sound biblical tools to work towards a healthy happy marriage.

• give a realistic, biblical expectation of marriage to those who are dating and not yet married, or who have yet to think about if they want to get married someday.

• shed some clarity to everyone (married, single, or no longer married) on what marriage was supposed to show us about God's love towards us and His nature.

i hope you stick around for the ride and join in with your thoughts and questions in the comments below.  let's imagine we are sitting in my living room together over a cup of coffee or tea and encourage each other about the mystery of God called marriage.

while you are waiting for us to get started, how about you give one of my most popular posts from a couple years ago a read?

you do not have to get divorced - divorce is sometimes a taboo subject, even among fellow believers who have common struggles in marriage.  this post is for anyone in the middle of real struggle in marriage or wondering what God feels about marriage and commitment in the hard times.  it may be a different perspective than you have considered before.

posts in the series:

i do everyday our vows aren't made just at the altar in the heat of the moment. they are made again and again every single day.

the voice  you know the one you hear in the middle of an argument? oh, you know the one...

love keeps no record of wrongs  my number one piece of advice to any soon to be married couple - get ready to forgive.

6 tips for developing a life in God as a couple  the awkwardness of our own journey of learning how to seek the Lord together as a couple.

20 ways to love your spouse on valentines day or any other day

the secret to longevity want to know my parents' marriage advice after being married 40, almost 41 years? come and find out.

if you ever had a doubt about what God feels about marriage... or what He feels about you this one is definitely a must read for everyone - not only those who are married. it is about what marriage is supposed to show us about God.

my marriage advice does it matter what we are focused on about our spouse?

charis 

my top 10 posts of 2011

well, i have seen this around the web and decided to do my own top ten posts of 2011.  it was hard to narrow it down and pick which posts that impacted me the most while writing them or rereading them later, but these are some of my favorites (and some ended up being your favorites too!).

the Lord has made me happy - probably the most personal post i have written this far... written with lots of tears and i hope it ministers to you.

there must be more than this -thoughts i had on the day of the Lord - standing before Jesus and giving an account for the state of my own heart.  sounds heavy, but hopefully it is encouraging to you to not give up on the pursuit of a fully vibrant heart.

proverbs:  how to become a fool - in my one year bible reading challenge i decide to write the "what not to do's" of proverbs. 

ten things to remember when studying the book of isaiah - this is part 3 of a three part series on the book of isaiah that gives the most important 10 things to keep in mind when you go to read the popular book of isaiah.  if you like this one, i recommend also reading the first two parts which go into more detail on why i started studying isaiah and what i found when i started digging in.

how to grow in a life of prayer - this is what we do with our lives as intercessory missionaries - grow in prayer in our own lives and help others grow as well.  these tips are a good place to start if you are frustrated or at a standstill in your own prayer life.

28 random things about bill - turns out you all are as nosy as i am (and i mean this as a high compliment) and this is one of my top read posts ever.  here is a sneak peak into who the man i married almost 10 years ago really is and why i like him.

the rooster formally known as susan -or- letting go of false expectations - who knew that having chickens would teach me such deep life lessons? 

you do not have to get divorced - this has been my number one google searched post and someone recently let me know it was on the first page of google if you searched the word divorce.  wow.  i feel like it is a timely exhortation the Lord gave me to share and, though i know it is controversial, i believe it is worth your time to read and think about whether you are married, have been married, or may never get married.

you cannot have it all - this is the reality of life.  the world tries to tell us we can do it all and have it all, but real life is about choices.  what do you choose to have?

how to find true joy - most of this post is just me quoting one of the most inspirational and convicting stories i have heard.  i want joy, how about you?

dear simeon - this is a letter i wrote to my youngest son on his 1st birthday. i actually have posted about each of my kids on their birthdays this year (my oldest is above in the Lord has made me happy) and the other two are a whole handful and 1.2.3.4.

when the curse is reversed - this pregnancy has given me vision for the day when the curse really is totally broken.  can't wait for that day!

how to deal with money with faith instead of fear - a little bit of our story of living on full time missionary support in california with a family of 6 (soon to be 7)!

the great adventure - i was just having fun with this one but it really spoke to me after i wrote it - don't you love when God speaks to you through you? crazy, isn't it!

12 tips for saving money on good food - this was a reader requested post.  i hope it helps you if you are trying to save money on your groceries like us.  please add your tips in the comments because it is far from all inclusive.


okay, so there aren't just 10, but since when have i been a good list maker or brief for that matter?

thanks for being such great readers and for all your comments and feedback - it means a lot to me!

have a wonderful end of 2011 and remember that we all have something to share that will encourage someone else on this journey of knowing God.

charis

5 thoughts before bed

standing in a puddle as i watch my boys' swim lessons in the rain

1. some days i wish i had a redo button.  today would be one of the days i would definitely use it.  there were many many opportunities.  ever had that moment when in almost an out-of-body experience you wonder, who is this mad woman and what did she do with the real me?  or even worse, is this the real me?  i am sure my all too patient husband was wondering who this crazy wife was and how did she happen to show up today instead of fun wife.  some days i am so glad that tomorrow is a new day and that His mercies are enough to cover a multitude of sin.  i definitely am in need of mercy.

2. i am thinking about marriage. i am still getting feedback from my post last weekend on how you do not have to get divorced.  i am amazed at the willingness of people who do not know each other to share a part of their journey in order to allow us all to grow.  i am convinced that if we can get vision to survive in our marriage, we can also grow to the place of becoming best friends with our husband (or wife).  i am amazed even with the great relationship i have with my husband how so many times i can slip into entitlement mentality (you treat me like this... or else!).  but to put the shoe on the other foot... well, let's say ouch!

photo credit myriah grubbs photography

3. my baby is growing up and i don't know where the time is going!  my second most viewed post at this point is a sister maternity photo shoot my dear sister-in-love photographer took of me and my sissy when we were pregnant together (for the 3rd time!!!) and due only 10 days apart.  i hoped to have twin cousins born on the same day.  she had her wish and they each had their own birthday.  my dear sweet simeon is 10 months old and myriah documented him so perfectly.  i still am in awe of his red hair, blue eyes, and thumb-sucking sweetness.  sure, he doesn't sleep at night, but after 4 boys in 6 years what do i know of sleep?  if you can't sleep, look at his sweet pictures.  they promise to not disappoint.

4. people often ask me, so i haven't seen you for a while, what have you been up to?  i am always taken back by that question.  i have two routine responses: nothing really or we are so busy! 

both are true.

when you are a mom to four boys you don't always have a lot of exciting events to show for your time and effort, but somehow you are going every minute of the day at a reckless speed until you collapse onto the couch unable to move with the piles of clean clothes staring at you challenging you to put them away.  the couch wins yet again.

yesterday i was gone for 11 hours straight- and i don't have a "job!" (i know, i know, i know.  i was already corrected by my mom that i have the busiest job in the world.  besides my busy job, i also do teach piano and do little bits of ministry with my husband on the side).  my point is, however, that i have dedicated this time of my life to being a mom, so my answer to the above question seems pointless if the person isn't currently in the thick of mounds of filthy clothes to clean (i do have boys), noses and bums to wipe, chickens to feed, garden to tend to, gifts to make, piano lessons to teach, swim lessons to supervise so the kiddos don't drown, driving kids back and forth to do, school board meetings to attend, bikes to ride, books to read, meals to make, dishes to wash, groceries to buy, wood floors to clean yet again, attitudes to discipline, and cuddles to take because time is going too quickly and this mommy is overwhelmed!  but, other than all that, i haven't been up to much.

5. i love the summer!  i love the heat of where i live. (am i crazy?!)  did you know that one day a couple years ago, the city i live in was the hottest place on earth?  hotter than the sahara desert.  and better yet, my dear hubby bill was re-roofing our house that very day.  needless to say they took a "break" during midday as the tar of the shingles literally was melting beneath their feet.  i love swimming, the lake, the beach, the longer days, the bike rides, the kiddos home all day long, the sun darkening our skin and lightening our hair, camping, bare feet, warm nights, bbq dinners, garden bounty, and happy memories made.  i am so thankful it is summer. 

what is something on your mind?

charis

you do not have to get divorced

photo by myriah grubbs

divorce.

i have noticed for a while the vacuum of silence on this topic.  it is a touchy subject.  many people have either been divorced, know someone who has been divorced, or are contemplating getting divorced.  many of our leaders and pastors have been divorced or are closely tied to those who have been divorced, and so they are silent on the issue.  we don't often get godly counsel on this topic.  i do not have all the answers about marriage and divorce, but i am here to tell you one thing:

you do not have to get divorced.

i am not being idealistic about marriage.  we are approaching 10 years of marriage within the next year, and though i am not a 50 year veteran i am also not a twinkling eyed newlywed with unrealistic expectations for life in a covenant relationship.


a history of sticking it out

my parents are still married (almost 40 years!) - their first and only marriage.  each of their parents were the same until the death of both my grandpas - faithful to their only marriage covenant until the end.  as far as i know, the story is the same many generations back.  i am not aware of a divorce in my direct lineage on either side.

this is not to sing my own praises.  this is not to say that i nor any of the generations before me haven't had problems and struggles in our/their marriages.  this is simply to state they did not give up.

just as i stated in my very first blog post about the reason this blog is called at the gate called beautiful, silver and gold have i none but what i do have i will give freely to you.  my hope today is to give you hope that you can stay married. 

i will be scattered i am sure, but once again let me make my whole point clear from the beginning:

you do not have to get divorced.

i had a dream...

a couple years ago i had a very vivid dream about two friends of mine who are married.  in the dream i was standing in the lobby of our church and this couple who i knew had been struggling in their marriage came up to me and told me that they were done and getting a divorce.  i looked into their faces and i knew they both refused to reconcile.  i instantly fell to the ground at their feet and wept and wept and wept.

when i woke up i have to say i was very shaken.  the dream felt so real and from what i already knew about my two friends i knew it was a dream from God.  i prayed about the dream and asked the Lord what it meant and what in the world was i supposed to do with it.  i felt very strongly like in the dream i wasn't myself, but instead i represented the Holy Spirit.  the deep grief i felt and the uncontrollable weeping over their feet let me taste of how grieved He is about the hopelessness people get to when they finally just give up on their covenant in marriage.

the grief was as if someone had just died.  this is the emotional investment i believe the Lord has in our marriage covenant.  for us to give up and get divorced - this is the death of our marriage and it isn't only between the man and wife.  marriage is between the man, wife, and God Himself.


what does God say about divorce?

in malachi 2:16 it says very plainly,

for I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of israel...

how does God feel about marriage?

the most powerful story of redeeming love in the Bible reveals to us how God feels about marriage and thus about divorce: the story of hosea.

God told the prophet hosea that his marriage would be a prophetic picture of God's relationship with His people israel.  God told hosea to go marry a prostitute.  

when the Lord first spoke through hosea, the Lord said to hosea, "go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord."  hosea 1:2

the story of hosea is amazing.  this wife, who he sincerely loves, cheats on him again and again and again.  he even has to go and drag her back home against her will.  she has a child that is not his, but another man's.  how painful did that have to be?!  yet through all of this he keeps taking her back.  it got to the dire point when God spoke to hosea again:

then the Lord said to me, "go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes." so i bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.  hosea 3:1

hosea went and bought his wife back while she was in prostitution, so that he could bring her back home.  she was an adulteress.  she did not deserve his love.  yet, he loved her.  he did not leave her, nor did he let her leave.  he kept pursuing.  he remained in covenant, though she trampled all over it.  
 
...and God was the One who told him to do it.  

God loves marriage. 

God wanted to show through hosea that though His people did not value their covenant with Him, He would stay faithful to His covenant with them.  God is a God of covenant.  He does not take covenant lightly.  marriage is a covenant in the eyes of God, not just a contract in the eyes of men.  

God loves marriage.  God hates divorce.

it was never a part of the plan...

it breaks our hearts when those we love get divorced.  God  Himself weeps over the broken covenants.  He is not distant and unfeeling.  He is a God who weeps.  

you see, divorce was never in God's plan.  it is not the way He meant it to be.  even Jesus said when questioned about the instruction moses gave about divorce that it was only given because their hearts were already hardened.  the marriage covenant was never meant be broken.  in matthew 19: 

He said to them, "because of your hardness of heart moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.
"and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."

this is a hard saying.  even for me to read, who hasn't been divorced and doesn't have a lineage of divorce, i still wince when i read Jesus's words.  these are not arbitrary words.  these are the words of the One who died to give us forgiveness of our sins and the promise of resurrected life.  i think many of us, if we were honest, would say in response the very same thing that His disciples said.

the disciples said to Him, "if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry."

if we truly had a revelation of the importance of marriage to God Himself, if we had just a taste of the grief He personally experiences when two people give up on their covenant to each other, if we saw the tears He cries, then we would take entering into marriage a whole lot more seriously and soberly, just like the disciples who heard the serious sober words for themselves.

it was never a part of the plan.  divorce was never meant to be an option.  in a day and age when anyone can get a divorce for any reason without contest, it is hard to not think in the back of our minds when we enter into a marriage covenant that the option in on the table.  to God, it is not on the table.


isn't there a clause to that forever thing?

you may have noticed the "clause" in what Jesus said to His followers.  what if your husband or wife cheats on you?  i am in no way diminishing the pain of this type of betrayal because i have to say that my heart would be broken into so many pieces it is hard to think it could ever be whole again.  yet i am here to say, even though a "clause" exists, this too is only because of our hardness of hearts.  if we look to the example in hosea, the one that God said was a picture of His commitment to His bride, we can see that even unfaithfulness in marriage can be overcome.  

i believe when we come to marriage with our lists of if he does this it is over, or i would leave if she ever did that... we are setting our marriage up to fail.  we are subtly prepping our hearts to look for the way out instead of pressing through to the way to overcome.

God's plan for us is to be overcomers, not those who simply escape hardship. 

and isn't His promise that He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (romans 8:28)? 

all things.

even marriage, however unhappy and unfulfilled and unfaithful it has been.


as long as it is up to me...

i told my husband a number of years ago that as long as it was up to me, i was in this marriage for life.  now, you would think this was an obvious statement because we made wedding vows of i will love you as long as we both shall live... but you see, we were walking through a season when many people close to us were giving up on their marriages and opting for divorce (many because of marital unfaithfulness and affairs).  i had a series of nightmares where bill was cheating on me or leaving me for another woman.  i had one dream at the time where we split up and each took one of our sons (we only had the older two boys at that point) and i obviously took the baby because i was nursing.  i remember how real the dream seemed and how much i missed asher my oldest son.   it was terrible. when i woke up, i could feel the fear of what if this nightmare happens to us too?

instead of trying to "think positive", oh this will never ever happen to us, i decided to look the worst possible senario straight in the face and decide how i would choose to respond if i ever did have to be faced with it in my life.  i decided, after prayer and soberness, that if my husband were to be unfaithful to me, i would stay with him and work it out.  as long as it was up to me, our marriage would not end.  i would be faithful to my end of our covenant regardless of if he was faithful or unfaithful.  it took a lot of courage to tell him.  i vividly remember the evening when i told him that even if he left me, cheated on me, or wanted a divorce, i would fight for our marriage because i made a promise.


i am not saying this would be easy and i am not saying i wouldn't struggle with forgiveness big time, but i believe it is right and it is the way God intended marriage to be.  one partner for life.  a picture of His commitment to us and our commitment to Him. 

divorce is not an option.

marriage counseling

in our several years in full-time ministry and pastoring, and even before, we have had the privilege to counsel many engaged and newlywed couples.  the one thing that i have said the strongest above any other thing, (above money or children or love languages or intimacy or so much more!), is that divorce cannot ever be an option.  it cannot be a threat in a heated argument that is thrown out there to manipulate the other person into submitting.  divorce cannot ever be on the table.


what comes out of our mouths comes from our hearts.  what our mouths say influence what our hearts believe.  it is a cycle.  the darkness that comes out is strengthened by our agreement with our lips.

do not give the idea of divorce a place in your marriage.  period.

if you have, now is the time to repent and stop.  ask for forgiveness.  start anew.


this alone will be huge.  if you do not entertain the idea of escaping, but are faced with the reality that this is what and who you are stuck with for life, i assure you that you will be much more motivated to make it a better marriage instead of looking forward to someone else.  it is the way we as humans work.  if we know that we do not have a choice about leaving, we try to make where we are the most comfortable and bearable we can.

we want to be happy.  

it is possible to be happy in your marriage.


let me tell you, divorce will not make you happy.  the current problem may go away, but you will not be happy.


but you can allow the Lord to have the messed up, broken, real marriage you have and let Him have His work and bring true joy out of what you were almost willing to give up on.  that is how He works.  He works all things together... right?  even the ugly stuff.  He is personally invested in it.  He loves covenant and is a rewarder of those who are faithful to their covenants.  


the one who keeps his promise when it hurts

i know there is so much more that could be said on this topic, and i may have already offended many of those who read this, (though that is not at all my intent).  i want to leave you with this.  two years ago i was doing a study on psalm 15 which is about who can dwell in the house of the Lord.  there are a list of requirements for the one who can dwell with Him many of which got my attention.  one that jumped out at me was 

he swears to his own hurt and does not change;  

this could pretty simply be said the one who keeps his promise even when it hurts.  i believe this applies to our covenant in marriage.  there will be many times when it is to our own hurt and pain to keep our promise, but i promise you it will be worth it.  i am not saying that everything will magically be better and, honestly, you could be in a up and down marriage for the rest of your life.  but if you are faithful to what you promised, if you do not take the easy road out, if you do not opt for divorce, then i promise you He will be faithful to you because you were faithful to your word.  

i promise you.  

He is a God who rewards and He is watching.  i believe that your marriage can end up amazing on this side of eternity, but even if it doesn't, you do not have to get divorce.  

there is something so much greater - becoming like Him who keeps His word every single time even to the point of laying down His life and dying on a cross.  He didn't back out when it got hard... 

...and we don't have to either.

hang in there.  He is deeply invested in your marriage and if you ask Him, He will give you the grace to stay.

photo by myriah grubbs

you do not have to get divorced.

charis