Marriage at my age

People have had a lot of opinions about me getting married in my early twenties.  They don’t seem to understand… they say we rushed or just give me a look like I was crazy to marry someone within a year and a half.  Without God, it isn’t going to make sense; I don’t expect it to.

God is the only reason why we got married.

It is all by Him and for Him and made possible through Him.  Marriage is a symbol.  A symbol of the deep, meaningful relationship of Christ and His Church.  The church (not the building, but the actual members of the body of Christ which makes up THE church of Jesus Christ) loves Jesus and we submit to Jesus and do what He would have us to do with our lives.  It is the same for wives and husbands.  Wives submit to a loving husband who would give up his life for her.  Christ died for us, and our husbands should love us in the same way.  Sacrifice on both sides is necessary… putting others before yourself is vital.  This is God’s will for us.  Age in and of itself is not a determining factor of marital success.

I read an article on relevantmagazine.com (a popular Christian-view on relevant things in culture right now) and there was an article that was talking about age and marital success.  It gave examples of studies that have been done on couples who married at very different ages and it concluded that the age was not a major factor in marital success.  Success has to do more with levels of commitment and personal maturity.  Now I’m sure you know of those older folks who act like they are 12 and then there are some young adults who have wisdom that far exceeds some older adults.  This is personal maturity.  The Relevant Article quotes: “there's certainly something to be said for going through those challenges with the person you love by your side. Having the mindset that everything in life has to be in order before getting married can mean missing out on the fact that marriage is often crucial in helping people mature.”

If God is in the center, your marriage will not be shaken.

On a personal note, I have had very different responses from people when they hear I am married. Today, I am younger than the average person to get married, yet back in the day couples would get married much younger. Age is such a huge factor today and I think it is focused in on too much and people raise their eyebrows at young married couples (with no legitimate reasons to back them up as to why they are judging others by their standards). The reason I got married was that I found a man who loves the Lord and he helps me with my faith and vice versa and to give glory to God through our marriage.


I’ve seen my parent’s marriage fail and his parent’s marriage succeed. My parents were older when they were married, his were younger. Age obviously, in this case, wasn’t the issue. God was the determining factor that his parent’s marriage has lasted. My parents did not have God in their marriage.  And no, I don’t think there are any solid guarantees to any decision we make because we are human.  We all make mistakes.  We all fail.  But God is our rock and our center.  Leaning on Him in all we do can heal anything—even a marriage.

Holiness

We are to be holy. (1 Peter 1:16)

I don't know about you, but I am not perfect... let alone holy.

There are a lot of people who ridicule Christians for claiming they are perfect.  Yet, in reality... the majority of Christians I know, including myself, don't claim themselves as, nor are they anywhere near, being holy.

There are people I used to be friends with or people who knew me a few years ago and I can honestly say that I am not that same person.  People might look at my past and see someone insecure, rebellious, depressed, coldhearted, and some other words I am too embarassed to even mention.  Then they ask, "You? Holy? Yea right."

I'm not saying I'm perfect.  Nor am I saying that I don't strive to be.  Because perfect and holy is what God has called me to be, but I am SO far from that.  I strive for it every day though.  And not for my self, but for God.  The God who has changed me completely from the person I used to be.  God says that the old has gone and the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).   I truly believe this 100%.  I couldn't be more thankful for that.

I hate when I see Christians claiming they are better than a non-Christian... like they have some sort of right to put themselves on a pedastool above another human being.  Although, I have been accused of this more than once, and my heart breaks when someone sees that in me, I hate that my old self can portray such selfishness.

We are all made in the likeness of Christ, and we are all fallen and that means we are all sinful.  The only difference, if we have accepted Jesus into our lives and are in a relationship with Him, is that we are saved from the consequences of sin.  Ultimately-- hell.  This is called salvation.  Salvation from hell and we are granted eternity with the God who loves us more than anyone could ever love us.

God has loved me more than anyone ever has and ever will.  He knows how horrible of a person I used to be and how horrible of a person I can still be at times.

I struggle with this holiness thing.

I still grieve and mourn over the stupid mistakes I make and how I can be so harsh with people when I am called to be a reflection of the loving Christ that I serve.  I hate that... I hate how my old self (also known as the "flesh") can take root in me and wreck havoc in my life.  I hate how I can give God a bad reputation... and my heart breaks.

This holiness thing has been getting to me lately.  I've been realizing that I am called to be holy, because my God is holy.  I am to be a reflection of Him and I am to let go of my past.  Because that is gone.  New has come.  Today is the day to decide to live a holy life.  To sacrificially give up the desires that do not line up with what God has in store for me.

Strive to be holy, because HE is holy.

Christmas Kitty

I know it's almost a 100 degrees out but I just had to post about our kitten at some point.. and I think this is a good time in spite of this hot weather! 

Maleik.  He brings me so much joy. Peter knows me so well, I am so indecisive but he knew my heart well enough to know that I really did want a kitten for Christmas. He’s our Christmas kitty and he keeps me entertained; he helps me to not be lonely when I’m alone at our house; he purrs and my heart melts.   His name is a combination of being a Christmas gift and of our honeymoon in Hawaii.

Mele Kalikimaka means ‘Merry Christmas’ in Hawaiian

We thought shortening it up a bit was a good idea. He even knows his name now by the way we say it *cue high-pitched voice* and comes running!

In God’s Word it says how He has made everything by Him and for Him.  I truly believe that animals bring out the best and the worst in us.  From the potty training, to the meowing all night, to the constant needing of food and water, and to the days that you just don’t want to deal with them any longer… that requires patience.  It requires self-control, on which a few occasions I have been tested! It requires us to be slow to anger.

All of these things test our faith and help us to remember that we need to rely on God through these little trials our animals take us through.  Maleik continues to teach me how to be patient and gentle with him… and how can I not? He’s so stinkin’ adorable!

Have you ever thought about animals this way, or is it just me?!

Taking Care of Myself

Have you ever wanted to sleep the day away? Or do you come home from work feeling exhausted even though you’ve been sitting for eight hours? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.  I have no energy, no motivation to get up and move, and just “no time” for practically anything!  I feel down in the dumps.  This is when I am reminded that I have a body to take care of… and it’s asking me to do so!  Our bodies get tired if they aren’t prepared to move, to do, to go.  This is why I am committing to taking better care of my body.  Eating right and moving more.

I am absolutely exhausted… from nothing.

And that’s not good!

So I decided to go to the high-intensity training class that my gym holds three times a week.  Good start class, huh?  I basically fell on the floor when it was over.  I am so out of shape (and no I am not overweight, but just because I’m not doesn’t mean that I’m healthy either!) and this class just proved that to me.

We all have to take care of ourselves; to exercise; to eat healthy; to drink more water.  Speaking of water… I only drink about a cup a day, IF that.  I can definitely tell that it affects me. 

Nothing in this life that is worth having, including good health, comes without a cost.  It’s hard work to stay healthy… to say no to that extra helping or to that amazingly delicious milkshake.  It’s hard work to get up off the computer to go for a walk or go to the gym.  I struggle with the latter and it’s something I need to work on while I’m still young; to make it a part of my life.  It’s funny how you know when you need to change things in your life but it’s so hard to just CHANGE.

Change is hard, but I need to do it.  I need to take care of myself... don't we all?
What is hard for you to stay disciplined at doing?  What helps you to get motivated?

Faith of a Child

Do you ever feel like your life is passing you by?  Like each day just blends together and the weekend never seems long enough?  That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.  Sometimes I sit at work, and even at home, and I feel as though my life is passing me by.  I feel like I don’t make a difference and that I am wasting my time; time that could be better spent elsewhere.  I look at my life and I see how fast this past year has gone and realize that it’s almost summer… again.  And there isn’t that excitement anymore like there used to be when I was little.

Where has the joy gone?

The seasons blend together for me now and they never used to.  Yes, I’m still young, but now I truly understand why everyone older than me has told me that the older you get, the faster your life flies by.  Yet, I think there’s something deeper than just “getting older” making time fly.  As we get older I think we get more discontent, worrisome… anxious.  At least for me, in my twenties and newly married, that’s how it is.

Jesus says that we must enter the Kingdom of Heaven like children (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).  Little children are trusting, straightforward, have a sense of wonder, and are simplistic.

Simplistic…

I would love to have a simple life, but as I grow up I feel like it’s becoming seemingly impossible.  There’s always something on the calendar to do, something to cook, something to clean, somewhere to go, someone to see.  I think this is why Jesus reminds us that we need to focus on Him and find rest and assurance in our lives through the eyes of a child.  Trust in Him with wonder, awe, and in the simple fact that He is our Father.  Be joyful in the little things in life, be grateful for everything we have, and learn to be content in every circumstance (Philippians 4:12).

I’m slowly but surely learning to be joyful.

Recipes I've tried recently

Recipes I’ve tried recently

I’ve always liked to cook.  I used to help my grandma and mom bake when I was little.  I also used to make meals for my mom and I when I was living with her before I got married, and still do sometimes!  Now that I have my own home, I love to cook new things at least once a week (or so I try).  I have a pile of recipes in my recipe binder that are just waiting to be tried and I just keep adding to the list!  The new recipes I’ve recently tried are the following:

Spinach-parmesan cakes :: so tasty and so healthy!

Homemade pop-tarts :: messy & time-consuming, but really tasty and a LOT healthier than store-bought pop-tarts

Chewy chocolate cookies with cream cheese frosting :: easy to make and colored the icing to make them fun!

I'm learning how to gather recipes I want to try and to just pull them out when I am about to go on a grocery shopping extravaganza.  I love to find recipes that I can put in my recipe binder and share with others how good they are!

Calloused Hearts

I’ve been thinking about calloused hearts lately...  I also remembered that I posted a status on Facebook about it a long time ago, it said:  Don't ignore the pull on your heart anymore... it may not be there forever. The continuous refusal to respond to the guidance of the Spirit of God may eventually lead to a state of moral insensitivity. Grieving (Eph. 4:30), resisting (Acts 7:51), and quenching (1 Thess. 5:19) the Holy Spirit may lead one's heart to become so hardened and calloused that he will not even hear the truth.

Then today I read a devotional where it pointed out Matthew 13:1-15.  Specifically 13:15, which states:  

Jesus said, "This people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them."

The devotional also had an example:

"I've started playing a guitar again after a lapse of more than 35 years. I haven't played since I was a teenager, and I had forgotten the first major obstacle to playing: tender fingers. Guitar players must build up a layer of callouses on the fingertips so that pressing the strings doesn't hurt. I finally have a sufficient layer of callouses on my fingertips. But when I pick up a coin, stroke my daughter's hair, or touch my own face, through the callouses I feel only the pressure of an object, not the object itself. Now I can better understand the barrier between the Lord and me: My heart has become calloused. The Holy Spirit speaks to us within our heart. In right relationship with God, we open our calloused hearts to the presence of the Holy Spirit. If we do, we will not be among those who hear and do not understand, who see but are blind, who touch but do not feel." -Stanley Hurst (Alabama, USA)

Living in right relationship with God keeps the heart soft.

It made me think of how so many of us take for granted how much God is pulling on our hearts to turn to Him, yet we refuse to respond and in turn we let our hearts become more calloused each day.  Each time we reject God, we are hardening our hearts so badly that one day we won't even be able to recognize what truth is.  Don't let your heart become like this... recognize that God loves you and He is always trying to get your attention so that you will turn to Him and let Him change you from the inside out!

This is my prayer: that all of our hearts would be softened toward God and toward each other and to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

(Originally posted on my Facebook Notes in 2010)

Wedding Vows

Wedding Vows
In honor of my previous post, I decided to post our wedding vows and the font that I used to type them up and frame them in our bedroom!  Not only do they look really cute on our wall, they are a great reminder as to what we have promised to live up to in respect to our marriage!  The font is called Jenna Sue J  I got this idea from one of my favorite blogs, Life Blessons.

I take you to be my wedded spouse

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

Till death do us part

According to God’s holy law

I pledge you my faith. 

Why I Love My Husband

My husband Peter has always told me that for guys, their hearts wander starting with their eyes.  For women, it’s an emotional attachment to another man (more of which I learned from one of my favorite books, Every Woman’s Battle).  For guys, it’s their eyes that lead them down a long, horrible path that more often than not, leads to broken relationships and even broken marriages.  This is why I respect my husband more than anything—he protects his eyes. 

This post isn’t a list of all of the reasons as to why I love my husband… just one particular aspect to him that I truly admire, adore and most importantly, respect him for.  He works for a moving company as of right now so that means he’s always around guys who are a little rough around the edges.  They will often try to one-up each other and talk about not-so-great topics of conversation.  Every day he comes home and usually has an interesting story to tell me about his day.  One particular thing that is usually part of his day is the fact that the guys crudely talk about women and break their necks looking at them.  It truly makes me sick hearing some of the things guys say… and many of them are married.

When Peter and I are together, he makes it a point not to look at other women that are wearing barely anything that could potentially make his thoughts go where they shouldn’t be going.  He keeps his eyes on me instead.

And it’s not just when we are together.  He tells me of the times at his job where his co-workers want to show him crude things on their phones and he tells them he doesn’t want any part of it; when they tell him to hurry up and look at the girl walking past them he makes it a point not to look.  He tells them he has a wife at home whom he loves (and goodness, does hearing that from him make me smile!).  I know he is being truthful to me because, first off, he is the most truthful person I’ve ever met, and secondly-- I hear the disappointment in his voice.

I hear disappointment when he tells me the guys who do this have a wife and kids at home.

One guy even said, “You can look at the menu, but just don’t order from it!”  What kind of nonsense is that?!  Do I want my husband looking with lustful thoughts at another woman when I’m not around him… let alone when I’m WITH him?! No way.  No way do I want my husband leading his heart astray with his eyes and thoughts.  This is why it's so important to pray for the men in our lives, especially our husbands, to have discipline over what they let their eyes and minds dwell on.

And this is why I love my husband.  He respects other women.  He respects me.  He loves me enough to protect his eyes and to remember the covenant he has made with me when we said “I do”.  Our vows specifically state that we have pledged each other our faith (i.e. our love) and to forsake all others.  We vowed to God that we would honor one another.  And this is my husband living out his vows to me, and more importantly, to God.

This is why I love my husband.