Archives For Life

Things 20 years of Marriage have taught me… (Continued)

Online Campus Blog Team —  June 23, 2011

4) Set priorities and build your life around them…not the other way around. Often I meet couples who will come to me after several years of marriage, struggling. Life, as a married couple, has not turned out how they wanted it to be and they are disillusioned by what their lives have now become. Now I realize that unexpected things happen to all of us. Things that are truly out of our control. But more times than not, the issue isn’t circumstances that are out of our control but rather because they have never set priorities for their lives together. ‘Life’ has taken over and now they are doing little more than responding to it. Life has a tendency to happen. It is like a current that can carry us places we don’t want to go.

Priorities, agreed upon together, can be the boat in that current, which allows a couple the ability to move in the direction they feel, is important. Let me give you a personal example. Before we even got married, my wife and I talked about how important we felt it was that one parent stay home and focus their energies around raising the children. For us this was a priority. That means that from the time we started having children we would be forced to live on one salary if we were to keep that priority. I have heard some people say it is impossible to do this today. For some people that is true however for many others having two salaries isn’t out of necessity but out of a desire to have the lifestyle two salaries provides. Often that isn’t a choice or a priority that the couple has made. It is just something that happened and a lifestyle they got use to before having children and they can’t imagine doing life with less. This is a case of life directing the couple instead of allowing their priorities to direct them and then living life accordingly.

Our lifestyle is certainly affected by our priorities. Personally, we have never had new or fancy vehicles and until recent years we only had one. We’ve lived for years with multiple children in single bedrooms. Our kids have never had the best of anything, but they also don’t suffer. We aren’t a family who takes big vacations. And my kids will likely have to work hard for scholarship and money to go to college. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel hard done by at all. We are blessed beyond what we deserve. I’m only saying we have tried to live by our priorities and make the choices in life that match those priorities, instead of allow life to dictate how we will live.

5) Be who you are and not who you think you are supposed to be. I think all of us come to marriage with a set of preconceived ideas of who it is we should be or what we think our marriages are supposed to look like. Those images come from all sorts of places…it might be the image of our parent’s marriage that we are trying to duplicate, it might be a marriage we have seen on TV (does anyone still try to have a marriage like Ward and June Cleaver?), it might be the image of a famous marriage we see in our society. Continue Reading…

In God, Life, Love
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Things 20 years of Marriage have taught me…(continued)

Online Campus Blog Team —  June 22, 2011

2) Know your differences, embrace them and use them for each other’s benefit. Typically the place where we find differences in a couple we also find some of their greatest strengths. Have you ever noticed that some of the very things that attracted you to your spouse when you were dating, can be the very things that drive you crazy once you are married?! The characteristic of spontaneity that you loved about that person, when you were dating, now years later drives you crazy because they won’t follow the plan. The characteristic of stability, well grounded, and practical seemed so comforting when you were dating but later in marriage feels like a wet blanket to all your great ideas and dreams. (Yes these are personal examples)

Embracing these differences and using them for each other’s benefits can be challenging. Especially since you first have to be humble enough to say you need those very characteristics in your life that sometimes have driven you crazy. How you apply this may be very easy to see in some areas and more difficult to see in others. For example, if one of you is clearly better than the other at handling and organizing your home finances, then let that person lead in that area. It will be for your mutual benefit. Other areas are a little trickier to see and implement. My personality is pretty no-nonsense and more on the analytical side. My wife is far more compassionate, gracious and feeling towards situations. I can’t tell you how many times she has given me advice, from her perspective, in a difficult people situation. I have not always appreciated that advice. I’d rather have her tell me she thinks I am handling things perfectly. But I have to admit, that when I’ve been humble enough to follow her advice, it has helped those situations be resolved in a much more positive way than would have occurred had I done it my way. When you know and embrace your differences you can use them to each other’s benefit.

3) Laugh Often… I’d have to say some of my favorite memories over the past twenty years have been the times just before falling to sleep at night or just getting up in the morning that my wife and I, reflecting on something that has place in our day, have laughed so hard we could barely catch a breathe. Often it will be about something one of our kids said that day or how they responded to our correction. It might be about a silly and insignificant thing that led up to a big blow up between us. Later, as we reflect on the source of such a large disagreement, we can’t help but laugh at the stupidity with which we sometimes act.

Sometimes we have laughed at a stressful time in our lives. Maybe a time when things were not going right and the future looked quite dim. At those moments something said in ‘black humor’, would just break both of us up laughing and gave us perspective that life would be okay and we will get through this difficult time. I remember one time we were looking for a new place to live while I was in seminary. It had been a whirlwind trip and as we were heading home talking about the house we had put an offer on, I mentioned to my wife how I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to handle the avocado green appliances. My wife laughed and said they were almond color. I was certain she was wrong and because I’m not color blind, I knew that wasn’t the reason for the discrepancy. All the way home, during that 16 hour drive, we tried to prove to the other why we felt we were right about the color. Days later we asked for some pictures to be sent of the house and there it was in full, living color for all to see the almond color appliances! I’m still not sure how I got it so wrong but even to this day we laugh about how adamantly I argued my position, wrongly. Laughter is great medicine in marriage so use it liberally!

4) Set priorities and build your life around them…not the other way around. (to be continued tomorrow)

In God, Life, Love
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Things 20 years of Marriage have taught me…

Online Campus Blog Team —  June 21, 2011

This past Wednesday was my wife’s and my 20th anniversary. To me it seemed like a really big deal and something that I had been counting down to for the past few years. Much of that perspective may have come from the fact that my own experience with marriage growing up wasn’t that positive. My parent divorced when I was six and frankly that made me more than a little terrified to get married myself. I knew and had lived, first hand, the scars and the pain that divorce causes and I did not want to go through that experience again. I also knew that statistically, the odds were stacked against me. Children from divorced homes are much more likely to have marriages end in divorced than those from non-divorced homes. So this was a landmark for me and a time to reflect on how we made it to this milestone. Let me say right up front our longevity has been by God’s grace, without a doubt! While my wife is near perfect, I am far from it and without God’s grace my wife would have gotten rid of me a long time ago. (See I have learned a thing or two : )

So here are a few other things I think have helped in our marriage and helped us reach this point. I’m going to be pretty honest with you here. Our marriage has been anything but perfect and over the years both of us have, at times, wondered if we would survive. But these are some of the things that I have noticed have made a difference and the kinds of things I share with couples who come to me looking for advice before they get married or couples who come to me with marriages that are struggling.

1) The more you know yourselves the more you can love each other. Some people know very little about themselves, how they are wired, what their personalities are, or how events in their lives have affected them. Do yourself and your spouse a favor and take the time to ask yourself “Who am I, how am I wired, how has my background impacted me?” if you don’t have the answers to this no else ever will! Understanding yourself is one of the most important spiritual and marital activities you can pursue. Church Father St. Augustine prayed, “Grant, Lord that I may know myself that I may know thee.” John Calvin, one of the Fathers of the Reformation, said this, “There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.” If growth in our relationship with God is dependent upon knowing ourselves how much more is it necessary for knowing and loving our spouse! I can only truly exhibit understanding and sensitivity to my wife when I understand the areas where the greatest differences in our personalities and experiences exist. One of the greatest gifts you can give your spouse is to have a clear knowledge of who you are. Closely connected to this point is the next…

2) Know your differences, embrace them and use them for each other’s benefit. (Find out how in tomorrow’s blog!)

In God, Life, Love
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Judgment Day Date Moved to October 21, 2011…The Reason You Don’t Have to Worry!

Online Campus Blog Team —  June 1, 2011

I’m amazed at how many people were talking about the prediction that the world was going to end May 21, 2011 just because one man said so. All of the news channels were covering it. Maybe even more amazing was how many of his followers not only believed this prophecy but spent thousands of dollars of their own money trying to get the message out to others. Well, as we all know by now, May 21 has come and gone and nothing happened. The prophecy of ‘the end of the world as we know it’ has now been set for Oct 21, 2011, and, as the song goes, “I feel fine.”

Of course it is unsettling to think of our life being turned upside down, to have all of our security taken away and to be put in judgment before God. I understand why this is unnerving. I noticed a certain unsettledness with my own children and thought it might be a good opportunity to share with them why I was certain this “doomsday prophecy” wasn’t going to happen. Continue Reading…

In God, Life , ,
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Being Radical

Online Campus Blog Team —  March 18, 2011

The term ‘radical’ is not one that we associate with good character qualities as much as we once did. Growing up, ‘radical’ meant something was the best, coolest, and most awesome it could be. However, over the years we have seen this word used more and more used to describe much darker characteristics. We have seen the rise of ‘radical’ fundamentalism where people calling themselves Christians have done great harm in the name of Christianity and ‘radical’ Muslims where, in the name of Islam, thousands have been killed like we saw on 9/11. In both cases, the very darkest use of this word ‘radical’ is being expressed, and these are only a couple of the bad examples of ‘radical’ we could name. Therefore, the word ‘radical’ today often conveys a   negative, and even frightening, message. Continue Reading…

In Life
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Honoring Parents is Honoring God

Jon Dodson —  January 21, 2011

Continuing in the REALationships series at Fellowship Bible Church is a message on your relationship with your parents given by Mark Henry. One of the things that is distinctive about this message is that it relates to everyone as we all have parents.

What might strike you right from the beginning is the emphasis Mark puts on the connection between our attitude toward our parents and our attitude toward God. Scripture is very clear about this point for every stage of our lives and it has served as a reminder wake-up call punch in the gut about some of the ways I’ve treated my mom over the years.

What’s more, as a parent to two young kids, it helps me connect my faith with the ways I am raising them and building their character. I am able to help them understand the link between their behavior, my words and Scripture – both in the positive and negative. Continue Reading…

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Breathe Deeply and Be Free

Jon Dodson —  January 3, 2011

In the book of Romans, chapter 8, God lays out the most significant truths in all of Scripture. I say this because it is here where we learn just how much God loves us and what that should mean to us.

Notice that I said “should” because we all too often don’t live in light of God’s love. Guilt and shame over our bad choices – both internally and externally voiced – get in the way of the freedom offered. We allow others to keep records of our wrongs that add to our own list; compounding the desire to hide from God and others.

That’s not what God wants for us. Romans 8:37-39 explains that we are “more than conquerors” and that nothing can diminish God’s love for us. Continue Reading…

In God, Life, Love , ,
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