originally written February 2007

As I sit here planning a candlelight Valentine’s dinner with my love, I think back on the conversation I had a few days ago with my single sister-in-law. Her Bible school class on marriage has given her a lot to think about.

I couldn’t tell her the teacher was wrong. I couldn’t tell her marriage was easy. It’s not. She and I both know her brother is pretty close to perfect. But he still hurts my feelings sometimes. She and I both know housekeeping isn’t easy. I often fall short of my husband’s expectations. We all know that there are emotional days when nothing goes right. Sometimes, the bowl of potato salad breaks all over the clean kitchen floor and you don’t go to the potluck.

Marriage is not easy. But life is not easy.

No marriage can be perfect. For no person can be perfect.

Such is reality, I assured my sister-in-law Marlys. Yet so is the reality that I am living my happiest dreams. Life at the side of my husband is more wonderful than I ever imagined. Merritt steadies me, balances me, completes me. I am even more emotionally stable since our marriage, he says. (And as the chief shoulder upon which I cry, I guess he should know.) Truly, we are as happy as can be.

But it’s time for Valentine’s Day once again. The day I so often mourned my solitary state. The day I was in raptures at his phone call and Valentine. The day I agreed to marry him.

So on this day of unrealistic hopes and overwhelming longings, I encourage my sister-in-law and other singles like her to enjoy February 14. Don’t ruin a perfectly good Wednesday with self-pity. Offer free babysitting so a couple can have a much needed dinner date. Pray for someone who is spending their first Valentine’s alone after the death of their beloved. Make your parents a candlelight dinner then slip away with your siblings. Bake some cookies for some special older people in your life. Be so busy giving love you won’t have time to miss it.

On this day for lovers, I smile as I think of the newly-engaged couples I know. If they were listening (ah, but they have eyes and ears only for each other), I would tell them to savor the sweetness, the fresh newness of their love and happiness together. For I know that yet another Valentine’s Day will find them reliving the memories, even more joy-filled and content than they ever imagined.

And to my love, my husband, I whisper words but few:

“Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be!”

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Ruth Bell, written in 1939 before she met Billy
published in Never Let it End: Poems of a Lifelong Love

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Our first Thanksgiving together, 2005

The old adage that “you don’t just marry a person, you marry a family” is never more evident than during the holiday season. Even if you don’t literally go “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house”, the months of November and December are almost always filled with lots of family visits.

I remember the first Thanksgiving I spent here on the farm with Merritt’s family. We’d been officially courting for nearly ten months, and it was my first holiday spent alone with the family I hoped to join. It snowed lots and lots. There were snowball fights. A turkey that someone put in the freezer instead of the refrigerator. Lots of card games. And lots of family.

Merritt’s two older sisters had come back to visit with their husbands and children. Even though I already knew them all well, thanks to the nine years of friendship between our families, it was different to be there on a holiday, without the rest of my family. That weekend I developed a new appreciation for my future brothers-in-law, Reed and Tom, who had already married into the Acheson family. I had, in fact, known the Achesons longer than either of them had—but regardless, there were some family jokes, some family arguments, of which we were not part. Yes, we’d heard the tale recounted time and again: but we weren’t there. And despite the years we’d spent in the company of this family, we three were still relatively new to the family holiday traditions, and still had the tendency to take the family’s teasing too personally. Except, I hadn’t married into the family yet, so I was even more of an outsider.

I took a long walk in the snow and thought about what it would be like to spend every Thanksgiving in the midst of this family. What it would be like to raise my children with the other little people running around there. Whether I could ever feel like I belonged to and was a part of the Acheson family, and wasn’t just someone who married in to the Acheson family.

The Acheson Clan, 2008

Four years later, I am counting my blessings on the same farm, with the same family—except, now I share their last name and even more of their inside jokes. That next year there was another turkey mishap that included a dropped pan, a burnt foot, a floor that had to be mopped of turkey fat, and no gravy—but I was thankful to still have my husband, thankful he was walking without crutches. Then, another Thanksgiving brought a tiny little bundle that has been such a big blessing in our lives: Ruth Ann was born the day before Thanksgiving two years ago. My in-laws stopped by the hospital to meet Ruth on the way home from picking up their oven at the repair shop–their oven (which has since had to be replaced!) had a habit of breaking on holidays, but that year it got fixed just in time for the turkey to be ready to eat when we got home with our day-old baby girl. Last year, Merritt braved Thanksgiving with my family, learning some of our traditions—like oyster dressing and playing pool after the big meal.

This year, we’re here on the farm once again. With two different Thanksgiving meals, in order to celebrate with family who can’t be here on Thursday because of work. Two different turkeys we’re hoping get to the table without them being frozen, dropped, or burnt.  Two little girls who are looking forward to playing with their cousins.

And this year, just as I have the past three years, I’m counting my in-laws when I count my blessings. Not only do I have godly in-laws who have been married almost 38 years and are a living example of commitment and patience in marriage, but my two daughters have grandparents living practically next door who dote on them and are always ready to babysit.

Now it’s my sister-in-law’s boyfriend who gets to feel the outsider when he walks into the room thick with inside jokes, surrounded by eyes that are sizing up his worthiness to marry Marlys. But it’s good for him. Nothing like a crazy family to make sure you really love the person enough to marry into it. Nothing like a crazy family to make you thankful to be a part of it.

P.S. Click here for a Thanksgiving post card from The Little Pink House and see our two little Pumpkins who are growing up so quickly!

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

This is not to say, exactly, that John and I are both devouring a new marriage book every day, nor that my primary reading is necessarily books on marriage, but every few months we remind each other how much better our already strong union seems to become when each day we’re both reading a chapter or even just a few pages of a good, solid, scripture-filled discussion on the topic the most important earthly relationship we’ll ever have.

It would stand to reason, then, that I’ve worked my way through a good number of such books and developed an affinity for certain re-readables. Give me a solid foundation! Give me strong basics! Give me practicality! Drown me in the applicable and correctly used words of the Author of marriage!  Please don’t give me watered-down talks of feelings and sparks and how to make everyone happy and comfortable–be assured I can think up all of that on my own, which is precisely why I need a good marriage book! After breezing through a particularly weak specimen, I find myself having to pull one of these favorites from the shelf to redeem the one I’ve just finished.

My current pick? Lasting Love: How To Avoid Marital Failure written by Alistair Begg.

Having listened to Alistair Begg on the radio off and on since girlhood, I knew I had acquired a gem when I found this in a very large stack of books recently given to me, a fact certainly true. But one of the things I’m most excited about in this particular book isn’t even the excellent marital teaching.

It’s the third chapter. On singleness, to be exact. Soon my 18 year old brother going off to his Bible institute, my as-of-yet-unmarried bestest girlfriend and my “little sister” in Alabama will all be taking a good thorough trip through this chapter… even if they don’t exactly, you know, know it yet.

We’ve all known a number of young women (and young men) who are rushing into marriage as soon as possible with other people who haven’t necessarily grasped the concept of wholly living for the Lord individually, simply because they think marriage to be the ultimate goal. In doing so, they’ve equated being focused on the Lord with being focused on marriage, not realizing that the two are both inclusive as well as exclusive–a marriage can never be complete without being founded on Christ, but a relationship with Christ and life of complete service to Him SHOULD be complete without a marriage.

The beginning of Lasting Love’s second chapter emphasizes this:

When we think about relationships, we should be very clear that our relationship to God must come first. We may well have to pause immediately and ask ourselves just where we stand when it comes to this aspect of our lives. Have we entered through the narrow gate, taken up our cross, and begun to follow Jesus? Or are we simply being kept afloat by the faith of our family? Are we seeking first the kingdom of God and endeavoring to do the right thing, or are we just living to please ourselves? Until we settle this matter, we are unprepared to make the right decision about other relationships.

Marriage is not an “end all” goal and, while certainly a high and holy state established by God, cannot be viewed as the beginning of our real life.

We must also recognize that our significance and fulfillment in life is not to be determined by whether or not we have a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. You will know of sad stories involving friends who rushed into relationships driven by fear of what others would say about them if they were not “dating” or “involved.” Settle the matter right now. There is no good thing which the Lord will withhold from those whose walk is blameless. There is no need for panic. It is He who makes everything beautiful in His time.

The chapter moves forward, simply overflowing with golden nuggets of biblical wisdom on the topic of getting married. Begg outlines the qualities and characteristics important to find in a potential spouse–even suggesting it right and good to put oneself in places where such a (godly) person might be found!

I’m drinking up the following chapters on marriage itself, but I’ve been particularly thrilled to find this excellent bit on purposeful singlehood. It’s not often, in my experience, that we find a solid, balanced view of the topic.

This last quote sums up much of my own (and, might I say, the rest of the YLCF Team’s) thoughts and goals for all of us, married or single.

Wisdom comes from God (James 1:5). Don’t leave a decision about whether or not to get married to instinct and logic. Be sure to see what God has to say about the matter. He may want to use you as a single person. . . or He may want to use you as a married person. Regardless of your marital state, you can be sure He wants to lead you through life and achieve all the potential with which He has gifted you.

Read your own copy of Lasting Love: How To Avoid Marital Failure. Married or single, you won’t regret it.

And tell us, what are you favorite books on marriage and/or singleness?

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

We often speak of things such as being a wife or mother as God’s calling. “This is my highest and noblest calling,” we might declare. I beg to differ. God’s calling to a life is the thing that will never, under any circumstance, change in that life. Throughout scripture we see His call of salvation, His call into service to Him, His call to righteousness. These are universal to all believers. But we don’t find Him calling people into motherhood, the medical field, a teaching career.  He does, however, put us in specific seasons in which we, individually, can fulfill those basic callings of service, of righteousness, of  love for others, of showing forth His salvation. We are called to be filled with Jesus and be wholly His own.

Marriage and motherhood are amazing blessings to be highly exalted and revered. They are high and noble seasons He gives to some of us, and when we’re in them (which, for marriage, is until death or circumstances beyond the Christian’s control separates the two) they are our highest priority, most certainly, and should be the thing into which we pour our whole selves for the glory of God. But to say marriage and motherhood (which, obviously, typically go hand in hand in our young dreams for the future) are the highest calling for a woman is to say that the woman who doesn’t ever marry or who isn’t able to conceive has somehow missed God’s original plan for her life. Both wifehood and motherhood are noble, if that’s the way God shows Himself through you, but they don’t at all lessen the height and nobility of the season in which He sets another one of us–perhaps the one to whom He’s given the season and priority of being on the mission field, obtaining a Master’s degree, serving as a nurse to people who need care, writing books and speaking to young women, teaching children, or any number of things God’s given the ability to do.

I’d not be so self-confident as to proclaim it easy to find the balance between preparing for what becomes the main occupation for the majority of young women at some point in their lives and not allowing it to become the sole focus. Nor would I say that I, as one who married young myself, have the answers for singlehood. Most noteable, I must be honest and say that I entered my own marriage yet holding some of the views I’m currently refuting. But I do know that even for me, as a wife and mother right now, God is showing me the truth of His calling on my life to follow Him wherever He leads being encompassed in the current priorities He’s given me of husband and children. But for single girls, their priorities are completely different. Even for some who are married, these eventually change. Spouses outlive each other, children grow and have families of their own. We’ve all heard the saying, “Nothing is unchangeable but change itself.” God’s ways are so much higher and more complete than ours–none of us knows what tomorrow holds. There are no guarantees–at all–outside of our unchanging Savior. Limiting a life to a man-made plan for the single years completely negates God Himself and His wisdom that reaches far above our own.

Never in the Bible do we read of women, single or married, spending idle days waiting for Prince Charming to arrive at their doorstep. Think of Rebekah, Ruth, Deborah, Esther, Anna, Lois, and so many others. Every woman mentioned, single or married, is found working, serving the Lord in industrious pursuits suitable to her season in life.

We can’t expect God to bless our efforts when they are ones of idly waiting or of simply taking matters into our own hands because we think we know what will make us happy. The true calling of active service on the path He sets before us is a command that extends beyond the boundaries and context of marriage and motherhood.  Single and married women alike need not be afraid of following God’s calling for them, individually–realizing that fulfilling His purpose for their lives is the only end goal worth pursuing and is something that can be accomplished now by living fully and vitally for Him, wherever that path leads… even if that path looks differently than we expect or desire it or even completely different from all of our friends.

Cooking is good. Cleaning, decorating and caring for a home are valuable skills. Children are a wonderful gift from our Father. Marriage is… wow. Learning more about all of these things is helpful (though there is a time to perfect and refine those skills, and it’s usually when they are actually your own priorities).

But also admirable is the unmarried girl who is teaching a room full of eager young minds who need guidance. Or trekking through a third world country and telling natives of a Savior who loves them enough to die for them. Perhaps it’s writing a dissertation. Answering phones and filing paperwork in an office building. Speaking to young women about pursuing Jesus. Traveling around the country and world as a photographer for missions trips and organizations. Meeting a word count goal for the book you’re writing. Serving teens and families at a Christian camp. Leading kayaking tours down a raging river. Being a chef in a fancy restaurant.

Go. Do. Follow Jesus. Be Busy. Embrace your true highest calling.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

But marriage is not the end goal of life.

Knowing personally and loving wholly the precious Savior IS the first and foremost goal of life. While such things as marriage and motherhood are, for many, the outworking of this goal, marriage in and of itself doesn’t make a life complete. It doesn’t signal the beginning of “real life.” It is simply a way God has ordained for some–I’d even venture to say most, but certainly not all–to better glorify Himself. Personal fulfillment, joy and happiness aren’t obtained solely through the finding of a life partner. If this is the only thing one is hoping for, waiting idly for, or even preparing solely for, something is severely wrong. Nowhere in scripture does God command or even suggest that marriage is the “IT” thing in the life of anyone–not even young women. In fact, the verses speaking specifically to unmarried women say the opposite–single women should be concerned wholly and completely with learning of, loving and serving their Heavenly Father, not waiting expectantly for life to truly begin with the appearance of Prince Charming.

It seems there is a rash among Christian young women to see their lives as being in a holding pattern until they get married. I know many–far too many–young ladies who prepare in every way and form they can think of, expecting to get married right after high school, because, well, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Some of us grow up often thinking that all we want to do in life is be a wife and mother… so why think of or plan for anything else? We do a good thing in learning basic and sometimes advanced housekeeping skills as we get older, and often, for Christian young women raised (rightly so) to revere and respect the position of wife and mother, this is the thing into which we pour our whole selves while we wait.

Sometimes, though, the waiting is longer than we thought it would be when we were 16. We reach the end of high school and our knight in shining armour hasn’t yet arrived on his white steed, so we wait another year or so, knowing he’ll drop from the sky soon… right? Two years pass… and three… and five… and… before you know it,  some have been single for much longer than they expected. They’ve been waiting at home doing everything they can to prepare for marriage–learning to cook, care for children, keep a home. They far surpass the basic housekeeping skills and have become a homemaker any young man would be blessed to have loving him and keeping his home. But some of them are beginning to wonder–what do I do with these single years as a whole? Have I possibly spent these past years waiting for something never meant to complete me in the first place?

We think we’re living for the Lord by preparing for marriage and marriage alone and might even feel a bit puffed up about our “holy focus” instead of doing the so-called “worldly” thing of pursuing a busy life of college, missions, service or anything that doesn’t center on preparation for marriage. We don’t realize we’re actually guilty of doing the very thing we’re accusing the rest of the “world” of doing. We’re living for our own pleasure–we believe we know what will make us happiest and most fulfilled in this life and so, as with someone wishing to enter any other field, we pursue nothing else. Is it worth considering that in some of these situations, perhaps we’re actually being blinded by our own desires? Are our own preconceived notions keeping us from what God actually has for us for this particular season?

Stay tuned for Part Two…

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Whether it is a friend in need of encouragement, a lonely neighbor without Christ, a phone call with someone who just needs to be prayer at that moment, a friend in tears at church, a young girl who needs to see a home where Jesus is the center… the opportunities are endless. And none of this is counting the most important daily ministry we have to our families–loving our husbands, raising our children to the glory of God.

This morning I read an old poem that I’ve been familiar with since I was a little girl. As a wife and mother now, it holds so much more meaning to me.

Isn’t There a Noble Task?

“There seems to be so little that I can do for Thee,
Isn’t there a noble task that You would have for me?
Something that the world may know I’m busy for my King;
Beside the dull and daily tasks that every new day brings?

For how can stacks of dishes and piles of dirty clothes,
Tackled and completed, ever tell Christ rose?
Or stories, mud and band-aids; read, cleaned up, applied,
Tell the world of Jesus, my Saviour, crucified?”

“Oh, busy, busy mother, your task is very great.
I’ve given you eternal souls to teach and educate.
Not in worldly wisdom, in fame or honor grand,
But how to love and serve My cause, and seek that better land.

For as you tackle homey tasks with children by your side,
You have the greatest privilege, within their hearts to hide
Bits of goodly treasures from My Holy Word,
Which many mighty men of faith first from their mothers heard.

Oh, busy, busy mother, I need you where you are.
Your task at hand is very great, you need not travel far.
Oh love and teach these little souls, and help them grow to be
Steadfast within the simple faith, to be of use to Me.”

-from Heart Throbs of Motherhood by Miriam Druist

written August 2006

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I just love Mondays. Call me crazy, but I really do. There is just something about the sense of order that it brings, the reigning in after the comparative slackness of the weekend, that motivates me afresh every week. I like to bring my house back into order, and with it, myself, reorienting around my priorities within the blessed boundaries of routine. Ever since I have been married I have structured my weeks loosely around a basic schedule: laundry and finances on Monday, shopping on Tuesday, baking and ironing on Wednesday, social commitments and projects on Thursday and cleaning on Friday. And after ten years, these basic parameters are so ingrained I don’t even have to think about them. It’s like my mother told me once, you need a routine so that you’ll have something to be flexible from! And while I’ve seen these words proven true over and over again, no matter how crazy a particular season or week or day might be, I always have my little schedule to welcome me back to sanity when things settle down.

This Monday was just a good, normal, at home day. It seems that over the past month or so I’ve either been traveling (good!) or sick (bad!) so a quiet day of washing and folding and sorting and filing has been even more of a joy than it usually is. Today started just as every other one does, Monday or not, with a cup of tea brought to me in bed by my obliging husband, who has learned after ten years that I can sleep right through an alarm and only begin to assume a semi-conscious state after a draught or two of The Stimulant has passed my lips. I have my devotions upstairs with another cuppa, and am inclined to linger until I hear Philip close his closet door downstairs, signaling the next stage of the morning routine: the barn.

This morning was cool and sweet—almost like fall—and the dogs were so happy about it and the impending breakfast that our appearance heralded that they pranced and capered alongside me from the gate to the very door of the feed room. While they were eating, Philip did the mucking and I employed myself with the all-important task of petting the sheep and giving them each little scratches and rubs in the places they like best—behind the ears and on the tops of their heads. Everyone seemed more interested in that than in going out to pasture—as is the case many mornings, we walked out with them into the tall, dew-wet grass, with the accompanying attendants of little black cats and big white dogs. Only, Puck and Pansy, my utterly spoiled Nubian goats, trailed back to the barn with us after we left the sheep in the pasture, and stood at the fence wailing in protest when we left them in the barnyard to go back up to the house for our own breakfast.

Seven cats, another dog, a fish and two hives of honeybees later, it was time to feed my husband and get him out the door to his morning meeting. The only problem with his nourishing breakfast of hot oatmeal and fresh blueberries was that he had to take it in a mug to eat in the car, as he spent his actual breakfast time fiddling with the html in my YLCF post of the day. But I made his lunch in the meantime—a turkey sandwich on fresh homemade bread—and took the chicken out of the freezer for supper, thinking all the while of what one of my newly-married friends had said to me once upon a time: “When I get up in the morning, my first thought is, ‘What are we going to have for breakfast?’ And my second thought is, ‘What am I going to fix my husband for lunch?’ And my third thought is, ‘What am I going to cook for supper?’” I related with a happy little inward laugh this morning.

As soon as Philip was off I fell to my Monday chores. I got the laundry going, watered the plants, cleaned out the fridge, and sat down to plan my meals for the week since I’ll be shopping tomorrow. After that I spent some time at the computer, paying bills, answering emails, checking up on the budget. I rewarded myself for all my diligence (I may love Mondays but I hate paying bills!) with a turkey sandwich of my own (perhaps mildly precipitated by a reminder call from my husband to actually, you know, eat lunch). One chapter in my book over said sandwich, and then one of my indispensable little cat naps, without which I’d not make it through the day, with my faithful calico companion, Josephine, curled up at my feet.

The afternoon was one of those in which the phone literally rings off the hook. I forced myself to actually sit down in a rocking chair on the front porch to enjoy both the surprisingly lovely eighty-degree weather and a couple of conversations with beloved friends, rather than stomping around the house ‘being productive’ as I am usually tempted to do under similar circumstances. I had a wonderful talk with precious Gretchen, who, I am happy to report, confessed herself to be in the hammock in the yard with her feet up like any good pregnant lady should be.

When I got off the phone with her, I realized that my husband should be making his appearance soon, as yet another quick call confirmed. So I made a dash to fold up the remaining laundry waiting in the big French market basket I use, and to make up the bed with sheets fresh from the dryer, warm and soft. That done, I started dinner—I am unabashedly old-fashioned, but I really do love it when the aromas of whatever’s cooking waft out to greet Philip as he comes up the front walk of an evening (ideally not the smell of burned things spilling over onto the element! ). Tonight I stuffed a chicken with onions, tucking some fragrant garlic cloves under the skin and topping it off with a lovely bouquet garni of fresh herbs from the garden: rosemary, savory, purple sage and thyme. Philip’s favorite mashed potatoes, made with little red new potatoes still in their skins and sliced fine, later blended with a little butter and milk and plain yogurt with a dash of rosemary for good measure, and a simmering pot of butter beans completed the meal.

It did smell quite temptingly when he got home, but as it was a little later than usual we decided to go ahead and put all the barn babies to bed before eating ourselves. The reverse of the morning, tucking everyone into their stalls at night, all safely gathered in and secure, is truly one of my favorite parts of the day. Tonight Puck and Pansy saw me coming from far across the terraced pasture, and with a whimper and a neigh they came running, bringing their sheep siblings with them. When I entered the barnyard there was a regular small stampede—goats, sheep and dogs all vying for my attention and literally knocking me over in the effort. Philip found me seated on the ground with a loving host all around me: licking my face, tugging at my hair with strong little teeth, poking long Nubian noses inquisitively into mine. I managed to disentangle myself and we performed the evening routine: shooing the last chickens back into their run and shutting the door for the night, searching for renegade eggs in the barn, laying out fresh straw for the babies and mixing grain. Puck and Pansy always stand expectantly on the step of the feed room, licking their lips and nibbling imaginary savories at the very idea of the coming grain, while the sheep hold back politely, knowing their turn will come next.

Once the animals were fed and mineral trays restocked and water buckets changed out—and stall doors bolted against the occasional breakout which can become a real free-for-all—we fed the dogs and played with them for a while. I think it’s their favorite time of the day, as well. Diana always looks so sad when we finally leave her at the gate for the night, but Juno has usually already assumed her post of regal watch, enormous white paws folded, noble head erect, ears pricked to the slightest sound. We chased our Aussie Caspian back across the yard up to the house in the bat light, and came in to a kitchen cozy with the welcoming scents of our dinner.

We always enjoy a good recap of the other’s day over supper, and Philip invariably gets a play-by-play of who I’ve talked to and what I’ve done and what I’ve been thinking as I’ve gone about my home duties. (He already knew I’d talked to Gretchen for he’d heard her voice on the answering machine!) I love these dinner talks, this acquainting of one another with the hours we’ve spent apart, and the long, rambling trails of ideas that usually stem from them. And afterwards the last cleaning of the day—the very smell of the rose countertop spray that I use makes me think somnolent thoughts—and the last polishing of the kitchen to greet me with a cheerful aspect in the morning. I really am a nut about leaving a clean kitchen behind me when I go to bed. I think it probably stems from the days when we were remodeling and I switched on the light in the mornings for eight months to bare sub-flooring and makeshift plywood countertops! I almost want to blow a kiss at my kitchen now, I love it so much, and it’s been nine years since the great overhaul!

Just a simple, homely day, nothing spectacular or particularly interesting, beyond the kitten my friend Ashley found in a potted plant in her backyard or the excitement of wrapping up a few last details of our upcoming trip to England or a package from L.L. Bean in the mail! But that was the beauty of it—just an ordinary day. As I was wiping the counters after supper and putting the last things away, I reflected that this was just the very kind of day that I used to imagine as a girl when I dreamed about my future. The life of wife and homemaker is very dear to me, and I consider it an honor and a joy to create a home that Philip wants to come back to at night. Not all Mondays are as simple and straightforward as this; candidly, most aren’t. But the ones that are serve to remind me with a quiet joy why I love what I have chosen to do with my life, and why I’d not change my place with that of a queen.

photography copyright Griffin Gibson 2009

The rest of the week…

• Tuesday in the Writing Life by Elisabeth
• Wednesday in North Idaho by Chantel
• Thursday at the Little Pink House by Gretchen (with series introduction)
• Friday in Sunny Southern California by Ashleigh
• Saturday at Castleberry Farms by Jeannie
• A Peek into Your Day by YLCF Readers

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

The Pleasure of Purity – Few books contain a chapter with as much power to impact your perspective of marriage as Feminine Appeal.  Carolyn Mahaney packs the truths from all my favorite books on marriage into one chapter entitled “The Pleasure of Purity.”  But that doesn’t mean single ladies should skip it!  The chapter on purity has plenty to say on fleeing temptation—and that applies to everyone.  Plus, it will give you a beautiful vision of the way God designed marriage to be, so very different—and so much better—than what our culture promotes.  (Wives, look for a more in-depth review coming to the YLCF’s Just for Married Ladies blog.)

Our conquest of sin begins with a deliberate resolve to set our hearts and minds on things above.  As we contemplate what Christ has done for us, we will be compelled to pursue purity for His glory. (pg. 90)

The Honor of Working at Home – In a chapter which could cause many in today’s world to bristle, Carolyn deals biblically and honestly with the call to be busy working at home.  She is quick to point out that feminism has failed to deliver as promised—yes, it has done its job of undermining the role of a homemaker, but neither has it given women happiness or fulfillment in the work force (pg. 103).  Yet if you’ve ever paused to come up with some other answer to the question of your occupation than the happy declaration of “wife and mother”, then you know how many of us are still affected by the poison of feminist thought patterns.  But the management of our homes—under the guidance and support of our husbands—is designed to give us happiness and fulfillment!  Carolyn comes down strongly on the idea of “co-responsibility”, making it very clear that the man’s primary role is provider while the woman’s primary role is manager of the home.  Yet she also uses the woman of Proverbs 31 to illustrate that it is quite biblical for a woman to contribute to the household income.  I thought her exhortation to single women was especially applicable to many of the readers here at YLCF (as is Carolyn’s article at CBMW.org and this article from Boundless):

I can understand how easy it would be to make the school or the workplace the priority in your life.  Yet the call to make the home a priority extends to all women, no matter your season in life.  Even now you can discover ways to make your residence a home, cultivate the domestic arts, and prayerfully consider how to use your home for outreach and care to others. (pp. 104-105)

The Rewards of Kindness – Carolyn’s definition of kindness is “a sincere desire for our husbands’ and children’s happiness.”  And just as self-control (nor in fact any of the seven attributes of a godly woman) is not attainable in our own strength, kindness can not become a part of our lives if we do not rely fully upon the help of the Holy Spirit.  Highlighting the hindrances to kindness—anger, bitterness, and judging—Carolyn also provides the biblical solutions.  Being kind brings us a reputation for goodness: What are we known for?  How are we described by others?  Is it our kindness or our style of clothing which attracts more attention?

This reputation for goodness begins at home.  At the heart of our commission to do good is the well-being of our family members.  Our husbands and children should be the primary beneficiaries of our good works. (pg. 128)

The Beauty of Submission – In the final trait listed in Titus 2:3-5 we find the most debated: submission.  But again, Carolyn handles it with candid grace.  She clearly states that, “Scripture makes no allowance for male dominance or male superiority…  Neither is submission a position of inferiority or demeaning in its application” (pg, 137).  She also makes it clear that the submission is not to all men—or even any other man who might seem more worthy of honor or respect than our husband—no, our submission is to be only to our own husband, then to God.   And nothing is a more powerful commendation of the gospel to an unbelieving husband than a submissive wife.

If we embrace [God’s] plan for our lives and purpose to obey His commands, He will develop in us the beauty of submission.  He will enable us to trust Him to lead our husbands to lead us. (pg. 152)

And the preface to it all in Titus 2?  It’s a “call to action for the older women,” says Carolyn.  (Which is why the expanded version of Feminine Appeal includes study questions for groups large or small.)  Paul commands us: “Teach what is good, and so train the young women” (Titus 2:3b-4a).  And as we state in the YLCF values, every woman is an “older woman” to someone.  It is your responsibility, it is my responsibility.  Let’s not only teach what is good, let’s live it out in our day to day life, commending the Gospel for not just the world, but also our family, to see.

(Note to parents: “The Delight of Loving My Husband” is a fabulous chapter for readers of all ages.  The only chapter moms of younger teens may want to preview is “The Pleasure of Purity”—but even that is very tastefully written and includes issues that moms need to be discussing with their daughters as they reach the appropriate age.)

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

The world doesn’t judge us by our theology; the world judges us by our behavior.  People don’t necessarily want to know what we believe about the Bible.  They want to see if what we believe makes a difference in our lives. Our actions either bring honor to God or misrepresent His truth. (pg. 27)

How are women to commend God’s truth through their daily lives?  Paul lists seven areas in Titus 2:3-5, which Carolyn highlights in seven chapters.

The Delight of Loving My Husband – I found very thought-provoking Carolyn’s differentiation between how wives are commanded to phileo their husbands versus how men are commanded to agape their wives.  Phileo refers to a tender, affectionate “friendship” kind of love.  The very affection and friendship upon which a marriage thrives is that which, Carolyn points out, in our busy (agape) service to our husbands we often forget to give them!  Prizing him, cherishing him, enjoying him—these create a love that lasts.  Carolyn encourages wives to practice thinking tender thoughts of their husbands.  Do we spend the same amount of time now admiring his good qualities that we did before we were married?  If not, shame on us—for now we have even more opportunity to observe his admirable traits!  According to Carolyn, changing our thought patterns is a key for keeping the passion and excitement in marriage.

If we find that our affection for our husband is waning or has subsided altogether, then we do not need to look any further than our own hearts.  Where sin is present, warm affection dissipates.  Anger, bitterness, criticism, pride, selfishness, fear, laziness—all vigorously oppose tender love.  This love cannot survive in a heart that harbors sin. (pg. 38)

The Blessings of Loving My Children – Again, Carolyn points out how important the agape command is in the way we care for our children.  We spend our days attending to their every need—but are we enjoying them, delighting in those little moments that so quickly are gone?  Are we praying for them as we care for them?  This chapter was filled with so many “highlightable” sentences and convicting paragraphs—more truth is packed in those few pages than in the majority of the books on parenting filling the shelves of Christian book stores.  Carolyn does more than just remind us to have fun with our children, however—she shows the powerful potential a mother has to influence her children, reminding us of the highest aim of parenting:

Our goal is not that our children be happy, fulfilled, and successful.  Granted, we may desire these things for them.  But our highest objective should be that our children would repent from their sins, put their trust in Jesus Christ, and reflect the gospel to the world around them. (pp. 60-61)

The Safety of Self-Control – Eating, sleeping, thinking, and feeling—all to the glory of God?  Plenty of conviction in this chapter for each of us.  But Carolyn reminds us that we can do nothing through our own strength.  His strength is made perfect in our weakness—when we admit our total dependence upon Him.  And the only guaranteed way to develop self control, Carolyn says, is to meet daily with God:

When we meet with God, we can find peace in the midst of trying circumstances, an eternal perspective where we have lost sight of the truth, and power to fight our battle against sin…  We should eagerly and consistently respond to our Savior’s invitation to come and meet with Him. (pg. 78)

The Gospel has the power to change our lives.  Are we willing to be truly transformed by Titus 2?  Nothing will commend the Gospel more.

Watch for the rest of the Titus 2 traits in the conclusion of the review of my new favorite book—Feminine Appeal—soon.

(Note to parents: “The Delight of Loving My Husband” is a fabulous chapter for readers of all ages.  The only chapter moms of younger teens may want to preview is “The Pleasure of Purity”—but even that is very tastefully written and includes issues that moms need to be discussing with their daughters as they reach the appropriate age.)

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Chantel

At the reception, everyone laughed when Scott presented Chantel’s dad with twelve cows…little stuffed ones, that is!  It was a reference to Chantel being a “twelve-cow wife” in the spirit of the legend of Johnny Lingo’s eight-cow wife.  And it made this farmer’s wife think of all our joking references to my being a so-many-ton wife—ton of hay, that is, since Merritt traded hay for my ring!

But the part of Scott and Chantel’s wedding ceremony I hope I never forget was a line from the beautiful bride’s vows to her new husband.  The word picture of a wife’s heart being the graveyard for her husband’s faults and mistakes is one I want to not only remember, but live out in my marriage.

I take you, Scott, to be my lawfully wedded husband, my partner and my companion in life and my one true love.

I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. I will trust you, honor and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, loving you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together in this life, and staying by your side through sunshine and storms. My heart is the graveyard for your faults and mistakes and by God’s grace I will always do my best to uplift and encourage you in your best.

I give you my hand, my heart, and my love, my all, from this day forward for as long as we both shall live.

Photos by Bethany Tiss

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

The other day, a few happy sentences in a friend’s blog post left me reflecting upon my own marriage.  Do I still sound that happy when I talk about my husband?  Do I still act like the delighted newlywed she does?  How did I, somewhere in the diapers and nursing, lose the habit of always running to meet my husband at the door?  In training my daughter to be a bundle of excitement at Daddy’s arrival, when did I forget to vie for his first kiss of greeting?

We’ve committed to being on a perpetual honeymoon here in our little home.  But when we get to feeling more like exhausted parents than a couple on our first date, we’re thankful for other newlyweds who remind us of all the goofy, passionate, and purposeful ways we honeymooners are supposed to be acting!

“One of the things I love most about being married is that there is a whole new realm of ways to glorify God. When I seek to please my husband, God is pleased. When I drop what I’m doing and meet my husband at the door, God is pleased. When I make my husband’s lunch and tuck in a love note written on the napkin, God is pleased. When I do any number of married-people things with the right attitude, God is pleased and glorified. How awesome is that?”

-Melinda (Lavorante) Meuser

photo of newlyweds Garret & Melinda Meuser by Clara Hajda

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

I have been married for nearly 6 years now, and I love being married to my best friend. But I have to say, marriage is work, a continual working at that. When we got married, an older friend told us, “You won’t just float into a spiritual marriage.” And it’s so true. A strong, spiritual, healthy marriage takes the Lord working and changing and molding you individually and together all along the way. Conflicts come whenever you live this closely with another human being.

Is it worth every minute? Absolutely! Is marriage more wonderful than I ever imagined? Yes and then some.

The more you learn now, the better your marriage will be. So here’s a short list of ways you can prepare your heart to be the godly woman of his dreams:

Learn to trust in the Lord with your whole heart. The Lord is the one who will make your marriage great. I want to emphasize this point of trusting in Him because there will be times in your marriage where you and your husband won’t see eye to eye, and it will be hard for you to submit to his leadership. If you have learned to trust in the Lord for all things, it will make it easier to trust the Lord in and through your husband. You won’t have to strive or chafe–you can just trust in the Lord and be at rest, knowing Who is in control.

Learn to live selflessly, to serve. This kind of goes without saying, I suppose, but it is, in my mind, one of the keys to a wonderful marriage. Marriage, and particularly motherhood, require nothing, if not self-sacrifice. Much of our role as wife and mother is simply meeting the needs of those around you. I count it my sacred calling (and privilege, at that) to lay down my life for my husband and children. To invest in their lives. To make my husband great, and my children spiritual warriors for His kingdom. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be married to satisfy our longings and our needs, which has the potential to lead to great disappointment. Be careful not to go into marriage with the desire or expectation to be served, rather than to serve. Real love is laying down our lives, and a truly great marriage is built upon (the Lord first and foremost, of course, but also) self sacrifice. Learn to lay down your life, to submit to others (particularly your parents), to invest in others now, to serve your parents, siblings, friends with the love of Christ, and marriage will be but a smooth transition.

Learn to invest your time wisely. In other words, learn to have and stick to priorities. Before I was married, I used to spend a lot of time online–hanging out on message boards, writing e-mails to friends, and chatting with people all over the country. I had plenty of time then, but hindsight is 20-20. I think back now and question what all that time really did for me. Quite honestly, as much as I enjoyed it, I wish I could go back and invest that time more wisely. Not only because there were far better ways that I could have been spending my time, but also because it formed habits for me that have been hard to break. My time isn’t as free these days with a household to manage and little ones to love and train, and yet I have to struggle against the lure of the online world to keep my priorities straight. I wish I had invested more into the relationships around me, in what really matters and counts for eternity–especially now that I live across the country from my family. Learn good habits now of temperance and putting priority on what really matters, and it won’t be as much of a challenge to take on and keep up with the responsibilities that come with a husband, children, and a household. This time before marriage is a very special time, a wonderful opportunity. Enjoy it. Make the most of it. Seek to serve others. Invest in what truly matters, and use every opportunity to prepare yourself to be the best wife and mother you can be. (And that doesn’t include daydreaming!)

Learn to use your money wisely. I wish I had done more of this as a single girl, when $4 lattes were a daily habit. In most cases, young couples starting out are on a very limited budget, if not downright poor. Learning to be frugal now, to save your money, to deny yourself that extra purchase, will be a great blessing to your husband and future budget! And even if your husband is blessed with a great job and you have a big budget to work within, you will still need the wisdom and grace to be good stewards of that money.

Rather than looking for a man, making your lists, and having all sorts of expectations for any potential suitor, focus your attention and prayers on being the girl that a godly man would want to pursue and marry.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother is a gem of a book.  The author, Carolyn Mahaney, is a pastor’s wife and mother of four.  After hearing her on the radio a time or two and liking everything I heard, I finally decided I really should find her book—which was written six years ago!  I’m only sorry I didn’t read it sooner, because now it numbers among my absolute favorites.

There were, of course, “the books I didn’t pack”—my stack of favorites I was reading right up until the days before my wedding.  I’ve always been a firm believer that how you think about marriage and what you read about marriage will have a great affect on your marriage.  And I know that the favorites I’ve collected have been largely responsible for the foundation of the very happy marriage we have thus far enjoyed.

Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands hits you right between the eyes, as only Dr. Laura can do.  The basic principles of her book are ones that have had a huge impact on the way I view marriage and men.  But not everyone likes Dr. Laura’s ultra-blunt style.

Created to Be His Helpmeet is chock-full of down-to-earth, practical, every-day application from Debi Pearl.  Her illustrations will be enough to change the way you treat your husband.  But the Pearl’s conservative stance and theological views are enough to prevent some from getting the good out of Created.

For Women Only paints a vivid picture of a man’s day-to-day battle with his eyes that can give women a whole new understanding of their man and his “visual Rolodex.”  Shaunti Feldhahn’s book is excellent, but it far from covers all the aspects of marriage.

Feminine Appeal has it all.  A no-apologies, hard-hitting biblical message—with no crass terms or theological landmines.  It’s a book I am going to recommend to every wife and mom, every older teen girl.  Even the chapter “The Pleasure of Purity” is written in such a tasteful style that it would be the perfect discussion starter for moms and teen daughters.  (Moms, I beg you, please give your daughters a vision for a happy, loving marriage—otherwise, this tabloid society will quickly fill the void!)

If you’ve read Feminine Appeal and want more—especially practical application for you wives—I still highly recommend Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Created to Be His Helpmeet, and For Women Only.  Each expands on some of the topics in the authors’ respectively unique ways.  Choose your favorite author of the three and check out her book.  (More detailed reviews of all three can be found at YLCF’s Just for Married Ladies blog.)  But in the meantime, be sure to read Feminine Appeal.

In my mind, Carolyn Mahaney’s book is the Let Me Be a Woman of this decade.  Not that Elisabeth Elliot’s book is out of date—in fact, Carolyn Mahaney frequently quotes Elisabeth as well as many other classic authors, which is one of my favorite elements of Feminine Appeal: all the fabulous quotations!  Read it!

(Watch for a review of Let Me Be a Woman coming soon—in addition to a more in-depth review of Feminine Appeal.)

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

We were thankful that our parents had raised us with practical, biblical financial principles that had helped us prepare for something like this.  But we had to laugh when the lady in the hospital’s financial aid department told us that because we had some savings and owned our house–and I wasn’t pregnant!–they could not offer us a dime’s worth of a discount.  We got the same story at the local agency we tried.

It didn’t matter.  God was faithful.  Because we had built a small one-room house on land we owned, we had some savings with which to start paying the bills while we waited for the money to come in from the other members of Samaritan Ministries, a Christian medical-expense sharing group we were so very thankful to be a part of!  (Thankfully we had joined Samaritan right away even though we were young, invincible, and didn’t plan to get pregnant immediately and thus had no need of medical insurance yet!)  Between the generosity of the Samaritan family and other members of the body of Christ–and a nice lady in the billing department who knew about Samaritan and reduced our bill–every penny was covered.  And in the midst of it, we saw the truth of what Howard Dayton writes in Money and Marriage:

God wants you to use money and even money challenges to bring the two of you closer to each other rather than damaging your marriage…  God intends money to be one of the glues that bonds your love for each other…  (pg. 19)

In the pages of Money and Marriage God’s Way I found the time-tested financial principles upon which my husband and I had been raised, instead of those upon which our government seems to be operating currently.  But at the same time, it was refreshing to read a book that came out in the midst of our country’s economic crisis that made no reference to the current state of affairs (other than reassuring us that Social Security will eventually be bankrupt!).  Because the truth is, sound financial principles are the same whether our country is at its most prosperous or in its deepest debt–just as God’s principles for marriage don’t change with the times.

In Howard Dayton’s Money and Marriage I found a solid biblical outline of how a marriage should be lived and how a family’s finances should be managed.  Written in an easy-to-read conversational style, I found Dayton’s book to be memorable and recommendable.

He addresses everyone from engaged couples to parents of blended families–and every scenario in between.  And about being a stay-at-home-mom?  Howard Dayton states emphatically: “Having all the stuff in the world doesn’t compare to the privilege of raising a child” (pg. 200).

His principle of tithing was again very refreshing and biblical: “…the tithe should be the beginning of giving, not its limit” (pg. 101).

Money and Marriage highlights the very real concept of a couple having different financial personalities and backgrounds.  And as I thought about my husband’s and my very similar financial upbringing, I could still see how we’ve managed to turn our differences into strengths: we’ve mixed my “cheap” side with his willingness to pay more for quality into a shared passion for shopping at thrift stores!

The crux of Howard Dayton’s message in Money and Marriage God’s Way is this:

When you marry, the Lord wants the two of you to become on in every area including your finances.  (pg. 176)

And because money will be an issue sooner or later in every marriage, Money and Marriage is a book every couple should read—together—before and after marriage!

Related websites:

• MoneyandMarriage.org
• CrownMoneyMap.org
• Crown.org
• KingdomAdvisors.org

Related books:

• Your Money Map by Howard Dayton
• The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

Instead of a wedding ceremony on a sunny Saturday in June, ours was on a rainy Wednesday night in January; but it was not lacking in love and joy…

read the rest here:
“You’re in the Army Now!”

P.S. In case you haven’t noticed yet, now you can subscribe to the latest courtship stories in your feed reader: ylcf.org/courtship-stories/feed/

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

by Claudia Adams

Claudia, do you take Harris to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?

On June 22, 1969 I stood before God and all my assembled family and friends and “plighted my troth” and promised to love, honor and obey my husband. Yes, I wanted obey included in my vows even though I knew that phrase was rather out of date. I believe I thought it sounded noble and romantic. I did mean what I said…I just did not fully understand the working out of those vows.

My husband and I were married while we were still in school; I was an undergraduate and he was in law school. We met at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. I remember the first time I ever saw him. It was in the fall of my freshman year and I was sitting in chapel at the Thursday morning assembly and turned to see him standing in the back of the chapel. The thought went through my mind that I was going to marry him…it was as if I knew I would.  For the remainder of that school year whenever I saw him he just stared at me and never said a word to me.  The next fall Harris transferred to Georgia Tech 100 miles from Macon.  I thought that I must have been wrong about marrying him since I had never even spoken to him! That same fall  my cousin, who was my roommate at Mercer, received a phone call from Harris asking her if she would set up a “blind date” with me for the following weekend for both Friday and Saturday nights. That was such a long week!! I still remember what I wore that first date and how I felt coming down the stairs from my room and seeing him waiting for me in the “date parlor”. One year later we were engaged and the next year we were married. I was 20 and he was 21…soooo young!

Being married while still in college and law school was quite a challenge. Sadly it was a challenge that many of our friends were not able to overcome. My husband and I both came from families where marriage was considered to be a lifetime covenant and commitment. I know God protected and blessed us in thousands of ways through those years.  For me, as a young bride I felt safe and protected in the assurance that my husband was going to take care of me. That first summer, I stayed in our little apartment and wrote wedding thank you notes and tried to get used to planning meals and buying groceries with not much money. My slightly-built husband worked pouring concrete that hot summer and came home every night with blistered hands and a sunburned face and back.  Those weeks set the whole tone for our marriage. Through the years whenever storms would rage around us and it sometimes felt as if we would literally drown I would recall how my husband laid his life down for me from the first weeks of our life together.

I still am amazed when I look back over these forty years to remember all the tender mercies and blessings that the Lord bestowed so richly on us. I vowed to love and honor my husband and to forsake all others. One of the great challenges of those early months and years was to do just that. All of my friends were still active in our sorority and school activities. They did not go to the Laundromat every Saturday or try to buy groceries for a week with $25.00. We lived several miles from campus so when we were home we were home and when we were on campus we were in class. I could not drive back and forth to sorority meetings in my old dormitory. It seemed strange, and out of place. We had lots of friends and spent a great deal of time with them but I felt that my sorority activities belonged to a past season of my life. So I forsook those “others”.

This is a pattern that I have followed all my married life. In post-college life my activities with my girlfriends were times that were not only enjoyable but fit well into the pattern of our lives. But when our children were very small, it seemed that every time I would go to an evening meeting for Junior League or Symphony Guild Harris would have to call me because someone had a raging fever, an earache, a stomach flu or some other “I-want-my-Mommy” event. I found that I could be very fulfilled in keeping many of my activities during the day and keeping most nights at home unless I was on a date with my husband. We were blessed with our most precious Mary who took care of our children on date nights and all the times we were away from home.

“Forsaking all others” looks different to everyone. Certainly the Biblical command to be faithful to your husband is not to be violated, but I believe in our society that we do not think enough about the “others”–whomever or whatever they might be.

I trust my husband completely and he does me also. That has always been a major part of my “knowing” my husband. He is an honest man and has a very deep devotion to the truth. That freedom has been a blessing in our marriage and in the lives of our children. I think being faithful to your husband also means speaking well of him. I’m sure you know the old saying, “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.” Harris has often said that just because I think something does not mean I have to say it! He is right—I do struggle with saying things I should not have said. I am glad to say that I can thank God that He has taught me to keep my mouth closed a little more!! I have had many women tell me more than I wanted or needed to know about their husbands. Yes there are confidences shared when counseling or praying with a friend with a burden or struggle. But casual, disparaging remarks about a husband is in reality being unfaithful to him. “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” (Proverbs 31:11)

In the Name of God, I, Claudia take you, Harris, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

Just typing these vows makes me want to shout, GREAT IS HIS FAITHFULNESS!!! Sometimes in these past forty years we have literally held each other through deep valleys and almost overwhelming grief. Maybe not as much as some couples experience, but enough to know that we have always come out of those dark valleys with a deeper love for each other and our Lord. In 1986 both Harris and I came to the realization that having minors in Christianity and being what my mother-in-law called “good church workers” was not enough. We had both been baptized as children and had regularly attended church and been involved in teaching Bible school and serving on various committees. We were both convicted within months of each other that we had never totally surrendered to the Lord.  What a transformation in our lives and the lives of our children. He led us in paths that were life-changing for all of us. Those years of teaching our children and working together to build firm foundations for them were some of the richest days of our marriage.

When I vowed before God to have and to hold in sickness and in health I blithely thought of the flu and sprained ankles. But we have been through those dark paths of bedside vigils of sick children, hospital stays that seemed to never end for two of our children, miscarriages and the deaths of the dearest of our friends.  Many of the couples that we have known over these forty years are now divorced. In these later years our parents have all gone to be with Jesus. We have lived in abundance and with a tightened budget. We have survived cancer and cancer surgery and radiation therapy. As a young bride I could never have imagined any of the deep wells of joy and grief that would enter our lives but neither could I have imagined the love that Harris and I have. I did love him when I married him but it was an untested love. No storm, disease, death, heartbreak, loss or disappointment has ever undermined our relationship. On the contrary our marriage has grown stronger through every trial we have had.

Nor could I as a 20 year-old bride ever have dreamed of the great joys that would come into our lives. Our Lanier, Elizabeth and Zachary are the sweetest blessings that the Lord has given us. Harris poured himself into investing in the lives of our children. He drank thousands of cups of tea with our girls, watched every Jane Austen movie, all of the Avonlea series and Anne. He showed them their great worth and value as young women. He played basketball, tennis, golf, hiked, fished—whatever Zachary was interested in. Not one of them ever touched the piano without having him as a listener. He praised them as well as corrected them when needed. They always knew they could talk over any issue or problem with him. He has been a counselor and confidante for them as well as for me. All these years I have had absolute trust that my husband would take care of me and protect me. He values my counsel and I need his wisdom. We are each other’s best friend and confidante.

Everyone that knows me knows how I revere Shakespeare and these lines from Sonnet CXVI really express what it is like to live and love together for forty years:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken…

I do not like to think much about the last line of my vows: “till death do us part”. It is a reality, but we are married and we will be until that time. It is a reality that makes me a very blessed wife.

P.S. And the “obey” part of my vows…Harris is noble and romantic so that was never an issue!

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

As Ashleigh and I were both celebrating such milestone anniversaries this year, and as our weddings were exactly five years and one day apart, we thought it would be special to post a series on our wedding days and the journeys we’ve taken since. Part One is here. And look out later this week for a very special forty-year perspective in Part Three!

Ten years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in June, I stood at the church doors, one hand resting on my Daddy’s arm, the other clutching my bouquet of sweet peas and gardenias. I remember how the petals trembled under the waves of joy that crested and broke over me as I watched my pretty maids in their pale pink gowns all walk so solemnly down the aisle ahead, preparing the way with a joy of their own. Then the great congregational hymn, the loved ones and friends filling the sanctuary with a triumph of praise to our Lord who had been so good to us. And on the last verse, I knew, even if I couldn’t see it, my beloved would be walking out from a side door with his groomsmen and the pastor that was to unite us before God and men in holy matrimony.

And suddenly, dreamlike, it was my turn. The doors opened at the touch of unseen hands, the strains of the Handel aria I had selected as a special surprise for Philip soared around me, and together, Daddy and I stepped into the church. It was filled to capacity—either the sanctuary didn’t hold the 500 people that the church administrator had promised it would, or there were many more people there than we had expected. Whichever way, it was a sea of loving, smiling faces that greeted me that day, all beaming with a happiness that is so tender and tremendous for me to consider, even all these years later. But of all that beloved throng, I saw only one face. Shining out from all the rest, so handsome in his morning coat with a gardenia in his buttonhole, smiling back at me with a joy that made me want to break into a run. Philip—my groom.

Everything was as I had always dreamed it would be—my mother almost single-handedly saw to that. From the urns of roses and the garlands of smilax that graced the altar, to the sweet little cones on the pews holding the offerings of friends’ summer gardens, the church was a picture. The morning’s rain that had threatened our outdoor reception had gone to its own place and the June sunlight pouring in at the tall windows was like a benediction. Each member of our wedding party had played such an important and valued role in our lives, and they had flown in from literally all over the world—Australia, Poland, France. The man that married us was the man that led my Daddy to Christ; the dress I wore had been worn by my mother and my grandmother before me. Every detail was fraught with meaning and significance and we were humbled, overwhelmed, by the loving support that had brought us to this place and this time.

But in that instant, timeless in its lucidity and standing out from all the blissful haze of that precious day, the only thing that mattered was that Philip and I were going to be man and wife at the end of it all. Each step brought me closer to the desire of my heart; each moment that passed was one less of a solitary journey. I received my Daddy’s kiss and heard him give me away; I passed my flowers to my sister and placed my hand in Philip’s. I heard our minister begin the recitation of the lovely old vows from the Book of Common Prayer and I repeated them back with all my heart. Friends later teased us over the brevity of our ceremony—any guest a quarter-of-an-hour late would have missed the wedding altogether. But we had one object, two-fold in its implication: to be married; and to lift up our Lord Christ who had brought us together into a union we had hardly dared to dream of.

That done, to simplicity and joy, we were off to our reception at the farmhouse that was to be our home when we returned from our honeymoon—the home that Philip had worked so hard to prepare for me from the day he placed his engagement ring on my finger five short months previous. When we pulled in the driveway the policeman directing traffic informed us that the pastures were full and that no more cars would be permitted. That until I leaned forward with a sly smile and a wave and he broke into a laugh and ushered us in—to our reception and our new life together.

My mother-in-law was more gracious. She met us on the front walk as we bustled out of the car.

“Welcome home!” she cried with a radiant smile.

And I wondered if any bride had ever had a happier homecoming.

This June I’ve been wandering around the yard, looking at the roses we’d planted and the trees under which the white and green tents were pitched; at the vine-covered trellis Philip built specifically for us to enter our reception beneath and the wide expanse of lawn that had been trampled by the feet of dancers in the Virginia Reel and Marie’s Wedding. The back porch where the fiddler stood and the front porch where friends had served lemonade from a frosty silver bowl. The perennial garden my mother helped me plant. The stone steps where I stood to pitch my bouquet into my sister’s willing hands, and the stone walkway lined with dear ones down which we raced back to our car in a pelting flurry of lavender.

“Ten years??” my heart keeps demanding. “How could it have been ten years?”

It just doesn’t seem possible that a decade has passed since our wedding day. That we’ve reached such a milestone and that ten years of long talks and lingering dinners and breakfasts on the fly and books read and rooms renovated and dreams dreamed lay between that day and this. Journeys abroad and blissful homecomings; rooms full of friends and silent Sunday afternoons; tears dried and laughter uncontrollable. I just can’t believe it. But even more amazing to me is the thought that there ever was a time that we weren’t married. That idea strikes me as almost ridiculous—and has with impartial force on every single anniversary we’ve celebrated. I can’t believe it’s been that long; I can’t believe it’s been only that long. Emily Dickinson says it well:

How odd the Girl’s life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse—
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven—now—

So what great insight can I offer after ten years of marriage? What pearl stands out from the others as I cast my mind and heart back over all that these beautiful years have meant? What hard-earned truth is mine, wrested from the quarry of experience?

Above all, only this: that I am utterly undeserving of the least part of it. The love that my Philip shows me–that has characterized and sanctified my married life from that day until this–flows from the very heart of Christ Himself. As Christ loved the Church—he has lived it out. It is unconditional and unremitting and unstinting—and this from the man that knows me better than anyone else on earth! How can it be that he could look into the soul of this sinner and still grow tender-eyed? How could he truly know me, in all my weaknesses and vanities, and still greet me with joy at the end of each day? How could he forgive with such abandon and love so lavishly? I do believe, after a decade of such day-in and day-out constancy that Love is the most humbling thing that could ever happen to a person. If I was overwhelmed on my wedding day by the outpourings of family and friends and the sight of my groom waiting for me at the altar, then I am speechless today. Words, my old and trusted friends, have forsaken me utterly and I can only stand upon this precious milestone with a heart full of love and gratefulness. To my husband, and to our faithful God who joined us as one.

Allow me, in my incapacity, to borrow from the poets once more: lines penned in praise of the believer’s relation to Christ, but no less applicable to the earthly union that is an image of the heavenly one:

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
George Herbert

A marriage made in heaven? Absolutely. A gift of God before which we both stand in awe. As our minister reminded us before we were married, the very best matches are those in which each partner believes that they have gotten the better part of the deal. After ten years I know that I have. But it’s a deal of mutual wonder and joy, undimmed by a decade of loving and being loved. It truly only gets sweeter–and more beautiful–with each year that passes.

Thanks be to God.

June 27, 1999

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

~Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Five years ago today I was standing in a church, facing the man I loved with all my heart, vowing, covenanting to love him, honor him, obey him, and be faithful to him until death. We stood hand in hand on the platform, with so many dear ones watching, knowing this was the start of forever for the two of us.

But this wasn’t exactly how it was planned. Oh no, we weren’t supposed to be in that church at that particular moment. If you had asked us the day before, or even that morning, we’d have told you we’d be joining our lives before God that day in a breathtaking outdoor setting, with a back drop of snow-capped mountains, shining lake waters, surrounded by majestic pine trees. But God, in His wisdom, had other plans.

It started the evening before the wedding, with the rehearsal dinner. Being that my beloved and I are outdoorsy kind of people, his parents had suggested doing a barbecue in their Rocky Mountain backyard, as opposed to dinner at a fancy restaurant. It was just more “us.” The plans were made, the tables, chairs and decorations set. And then… the clouds rolled in. With thunder. And lightning. And rain. And hail. Our family and wedding party rushed for cover into the house… and began to talk about what we’d do the next day for our 1:45 pm wedding. Surely, we told ourselves, surely, after all this planning, the rain would hold off. It just had to be clear. Surely.

Yet, the next afternoon, forty-five minutes after the wedding had been scheduled to start at the lake, our guests filed into the church auditorium from where they’d all been squeezed in the foyer to keep out of the hail. The storm, which had returned with even greater fury than the night before,  had driven us from the lakeside just minutes before the ceremony was supposed to begin. While guests caravaned the short drive from one place to the other, my sweet bridesmaids and everyone else who was close enough to help–all in full wedding attire!–pulled out vacuums, transferred the decorations as they arrived in cars from the lake, and did everything they could to calm my rather shaken nerves.

My beloved called my cell phone many times in the course of the location switch, making sure I was alright. “Just remember,” John told me, over and over. “Today is STILL our wedding day. You are my bride no matter what. By the end of today, we’ll still be husband and wife.”

Five years later, I sit here, several states away from that wedding site, smiling to myself over the way the day turned out. We didn’t have the outdoor wedding I’d spent so many months planning, but we did get married. We didn’t get to take the wedding pictures near the Colorado lakes and streams and mountains that the “photographer papers” we wrote out said we would, but we do have pictures radiating our love and joy that day. Fancy dresses may have been a bit wrinkled and tux coats set aside until the last minute, but we were shown by every single person around us that day just how much we were loved and how blessed we were to have such dear ones in our lives.

If there was one life lesson that has seemed to characterize our marriage these five years, it’s the fact that “nothing is certain except change itself.”  Things seem to change in drastic ways around here, sometimes faster than our minds can even process. And yet, through every change, we come to the end of each day still as bride and bridegroom. At five years, a milestone when many couples are evaluating their relationship and whether it’s worth staying together, we can say without hesitancy that the many changes and curve balls our first five years have brought have only served to cement us even closer, stronger, and with more reliance on the God who joined us. The people who surrounded us that very first day remind us by their example and with their current presence in our lives of the covenant we made, the support we have through every step, and have shown us that true Christlike love gives, serves… and is flexible.

Things don’t always happen exactly as we planned them. Dinner doesn’t always turn out, husbands come home late or change schedules, jobs are lost and gained, moves can happen at a moment’s notice, babies don’t arrive when we expect, family troubles can threaten marriage bonds, children don’t always behave the way we want when we want, illnesses take our health, and a thousand other changes can send stormy weather in the direction of a husband and wife.  But that’s okay. At the end of it all–and perhaps because of it all–we still look into each others’ eyes and see sparkles. We can still kiss under the stars and be amazed that we have each other. We can laugh until our sides ache, sleep snuggled close every night (and go to bed at the same time!), and play footsies under a dinner table surrounded by our little ones. My husband still wraps his arms around my waist and buries his head in my hair while I make dinner, steals kisses whenever he walks by, and catches my eye from across a crowded room for a look that only I can catch. I think the fact that he makes me a cup of coffee every morning, selecting the cups I like best (like my “Marine Wife and Proud of It!” mug!), blending the cream and sugar perfectly, and bringing it upstairs to wake me with a kiss–just as he did every morning of our honeymoon–qualifies us as the perpetual honeymooners we are.

When we stood in that church on June 26, 2004, we didn’t know what was ahead for us. We couldn’t hope to foresee the particular challenges we’d face or what our life together would look like, any more than we can see what the years ahead will be. But we did know one thing–we would be facing all of it as best friends and with the Jesus who brought us together. And if this first day was any indication, we’d be learning to be flexible!

These foundational, strengthening truths we’ve been learning every one of the 1,826 days we’ve been man and wife are the ones we trust our Lord will be continuing to refine and perfect through the decades ahead of us. After all, He got started on the very first day in June.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.

It didn’t take long for it to become busy. My sister and I ran down to grab something to eat, and by the time we got back, the girls were gathering in the bridal suite to get ready, and it seemed like my phone began to ring and I began to wonder as time went on, if I would manage to be ready in time, or if I, too, would be just another bride late to her wedding ceremony.

But I put on that dress, that beautiful white dress, the most expensive and fancy I’ll ever wear in my life, and I was ready to go to my groom- on time.

There were pictures first, and then the dash from the car to the basement of the little white church in Asotin, and the ceremony began.

I had seen many of my friends marry, and I had the privilege of standing up with three of those girls as they joined their life with the man they loved, and I had tried to soothe nervous jitters, wiped away tears, and watched one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen- the face of a bride as she walks towards her man. I’d laughed and cried through those days. Laughed, because they were the happiest days, and cried because they were the most beautiful, touching moments I’d ever shared, and then I wondered, as I saw the face of a dear friend, glowingly radiant, and caught a little of their happiness and tucked it away in my heart, how could one ever truly describe a day like this?

I was not nervous, and I didn’t cry as I walked down the aisle, but from the time I stepped around that corner and saw the face of my beloved, I heard and saw little else. The music that was playing, the faces of family and friends, the wedding party- I couldn’t tell you anything about them at that moment. All I saw was Scott’s face, and that was all that mattered as a million emotions surged through my heart, and must have been written on my face.

But there we were. Together, joining our lives. It was the beginning of our happily ever after, and it was beautiful.

My brother’s talk was good, and the music was wonderful, once I started hearing it again. The church was full- full of the people we loved, and the decoration was simple, yet perfect for us. The bridesmatrons, my beautiful sisters, looked so pretty, and the groomsmen were handsome the western-ish touches in their outfits. My cousin Steven, and Gretchen’s little Ruth Ann being pulled in the wagon, made an adorable “Wagon Man” and Flower girl, and Suzuki’s “The Happy Farmer” certainly added the right touch to their appearance down the aisle.

Our reception was great too-  the amazingly beautiful cake,  that song I’ve always loved, “Grow Old Along With Me”, and the story that led to our own little game  we started during courtship (SILUM!), and best of all the presentation of the 12 stuffed cows to my parents, the playful fulfillment of a talk Scott and Dad had before our engagement. The expressions and that moment were priceless.

Three months have slipped by since I was a bride, but the happiness remains, and the love that was so deep then, only grows deeper. It gets better every day. I pray that it always will. It’s something that must be a way of life, a choice each day, something that we each must guard as a treasure worth more than life. And, by God’s grace, that beginning of happiness will indeed be just the opening chapter in our Happily Ever After… forever.

P.S. You can see some of the pictures of our day here and here.

©2010 Young Ladies Christian Fellowship. All Rights Reserved.