It’s okay to be different.
It’s okay to not have the same favourite restaurant.
It’s okay to like a different colour.
It’s okay to have hobbies.
It’s okay to hang out with the guy.  Or the girls.
It’s okay to not match your outfits.
It’s okay to stand up to your spouse.
It’s okay to be proud of your spouse.
It’s okay to not approve of some of their friends.
It’s okay to be opposed to some of their bad habits.
It’s okay to disagree with your in-laws.
It’s okay to like a different type of pet.
It’s okay brag about your awesome spouse.
It’s okay to want to spend every waking moment with your spouse.
It’s okay to take a break from your spouse.
It’s okay to challenge your spouse on character growth.
It’s okay to pray for God’s wisdom in your marriage.
It’s even okay to disagree about things.

Just because you are ONE doesn’t mean you no longer have a mind, body, or Spirit.  You’re soul mates, not Siamese attached-at-the-hip robot clones.

Now breathe.  You’re gonna be okay.

I’ve been thinking up some of the ways I could ruin my marriage.  Here’s the list:
-burn all her clothes
-put down her parents
-start treating her poorly
-throw out her books and pictures
-verbally tear apart her friends
-ignore her when my friends are around
-leave without telling her where I’m going
-stay out until all hours of the night

But there’s one way that would destroy it completely: make my marriage all about me.

Selfishness is the poison in love’s pond.
Self-centredness is the arsenic in the water.

Selflessness is the antidote.

I’m so glad that I had young, godly, passionate couples to look up to before I got married.  Specifically Kevin & Meg and Matt & Julie.  Not that I was afraid to get married, but it was re-assuring to think ‘okay, if Kev can be in school and do this, then I can do this too.’  ‘Okay, if Matt can lead Julie, then I can at least try with Michelle!’ It was a great source of inspiration early on.

Now comes baby stage. Who will be first?  Seems like the ‘race’ will soon be on.  Not that it’s a competition, but I’m willing to take bets!  I won’t say that there’s been lots of pressure to have children, but there has been enough!  I have a feeling that Michelle and I will probably start a little later, but end up with the most.

To tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to again having young passionate couples to lead the way.  We already have a little bit of that through Sarah and CJ, but Texas is just so dang far away!  Here’s why I’m looking forward to having other couples go first- I have a lot of questions. Like…

Who will get run ragged by their sick baby who won’t sleep nights?  What if a couple has a child with some sort of handicap?  What if they can’t get pregnant at all? How will a couple cope with a miscarriage?  How will the husbands respond to the lack of attention that they may (not) receive from their wives during the early years?  How much does a baby or three reeeeally cost?  How will their new time commitment affect their quality of work, relationships, and ministry?  How will they deal with a rebellious teenage daughter or a violently angry son?  How will they cope with accidental death or injury?  How do you deal with sibling rivalry? Conflicting schedules?  How will you discipline them?  How will you raise them up in the Lord?  How will you show them love?

Children are a gift from God.  I like gifts by the dozen. But I also want to learn from experience.  I’m grateful for the pioneers called parents.  It’s the only way that I’ll get my questions answered and be able to raise up a new godly generation right within our home.  And that’s worth waiting for!

What questions do you have about baby-raisin’?

Last week I was taking a shower, and thinking about Michelle dying someday and how that would be the most horrible, lonely experience I could ever face.  How I’d need to surround myself with community despite wanting to be in deep isolation.  How I’d have to learn how to cry and mourn and heal.  How I’d have to pick up the pieces and move on with work, relationships, ministry, and life.  I didn’t like the prospects much at all.  I got out of the shower and gave Michelle a huge hug and said, “I don’t want you to ever die.” But the truth is- someday she will.  Or I will.

Just Google or YouTube ‘tribute to my wife’…

That evening, she said something I don’t like very much: “It’s hard to think that, given enough time, either you will outlive your spouse or your spouse will outlive you.  Eventually, someone has to say goodbye.”

I got to thinking about the marriages I know.  Who will be widowed first?  How will it happen?  I know quite a few bad drivers.  How will the surviving member go on?  Then I began to wonder about who would ever recover.  Then I began to ask the hard questions…

Could you live without your spouse?  Or would you cease to live?  Would you be able to carry on?  Or would you kill yourself?  Could you survive the heartbreak of loss?  Or would it break you?

This might be hard for many of you to hear- if you couldn’t live without your spouse, then your spouse has become your god and you need to re-size God and re-position your spouse.

A spouse is a gift from God.  A spouse is a trust from God.  A spouse was created by God, and a spouse will return to God.  He or she is yours, but not really.  Your spouse is God’s.

My advice?  Let go now.  Say goodbye now. Give up now.  Surrender your marriage to Jesus.  Place your spouse back in God’s hands.  Put yourself back in God’s hands.  It’s the only place where you can always be together.

I don’t even know if I should ask that question.  It’s a hard question.  I was thinking about my closest friends this week.  There are about 12 of us couples who live in the Hamilton area.  All newly married.  All happy.  For the moment. But if the stats prove true, more than half of us will end our commitments prematurely.

I look around and (even though maybe I shouldn’t) ask, “who will get divorced first?”  Will it be an affair?  A mutual thing?  Will he do it or will she do it?  Will it be a series of ups and downs?  One massive fight?  Will it make
all the friends choose sides?  Will one of the dudes move in with us?  Will they both move back home to their parents?  What about church?  Friend functions?

One of my cousins…every single woman in her wedding party is now separated.  I’ve seen the mess it causes in children, having watched the slow divorce of a young couple in a church I once attended.

Not only do we need to avoid divorce, we need to steer a wide path away from bad marriages.  It’s not enough to just be ’safe’.  We need to have awesome marriages.  And I think this is a group effort.  Here are three very important keys to ’staying happily put’!

Relationship with God.  Stop fooling yourself.  A marriage without Jesus is like a PB&J without bread…there’s nothing to hold it together.  Proverbs 13 “A God-loyal life keeps you on track….sin dumps the wicked in the ditch.” Don’t get pitched- get right with God.

Community. It’s alot harder to let your marriage fall apart when you’re constantly surrounded by other couples trying to pursue God.  Someone is bound to notice.  Someone will call you to account.  I’m grateful for each the friends I have with the Boldness And Loving Leadership to ask how things are REALLY going.  Proverbs 13: 20 “Become wise by walking with the wise; hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces”. You get like the people by which you intentionally surround yourself.

A willingness to get right. I hang around with certain couples and see certain interactions and think ‘boy, I sure hope that doesn’t get worse.‘  I’m sure others think the same of me!  “If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself;
  but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding.” God had no use for a fool, and neither does this earth- expect when an example is needed to be made.  Only a headcase refuses to learn and grow from others.  Get there.

Get right with God.  Get in community.  Get right with people.  Don’t become a stat.  Don’t become a first.

And if you must be the first, be the first community to be jam-pack-filled with God-centred, passionate, I-love-you-so-much-I-want-to-scream marriages.

Any other ideas on how we can be divorce-free communities?  And more importantly- how do we become communities full of godly, worship-filled relationships?