Married with Kids

I never really watched the show by that title, but I did see bits and pieces of a few of the episodes, though I don't remember much. However, I know the premise was that marriage gets crazy, harder and/or more challenging once kids enter the picture. Marriage is never easy and always takes work. But kids take all that to the next level.

I realized that I write a lot about our kids and our adventures in parenthood, but never about our marriage. Yet, our marriage is supposed to be the foundation of our families. So, in effort to continue my challenge to myself to remove my mask and be more real with you and the world around me, I am also going to try and write more about marriage. My marriage as well as my observations about the state of marriage in our culture, with the hope that these more real posts will help and encourage you in your marriage or future marriage.  (In NO WAY is my intention to make anyone feel bad about their marriage. So please forgive me if anything I write offends!)

Sooo, this May 19th, Chris and I will celebrate our 10th year of marriage. (10 years! That makes me feel OLD!!! )  I am trying for figure out how time has passed so quickly!!! Oh yeah, 4 kids might have something to do with it!! But, it has not all been "happily ever after."

We did have a great example in Chris' parents, however. Their marriage was a model of real love. Real love is the kind that isn't fickle. The kind that survives the storms and thrives on the sunny days. The kind in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.  But learning how to navigate the waters of marriage on our own has taken time and patience!  And we have by no means perfected it. It is an on-going process.

There is one thing we have learned and accomplish most of the time, and that is what I want to share with you today: We are committed to putting our marriage first. With kids, that gets tough for two reasons:

1- When you have kids, you are always tired. This constant state of exhaustion I live in tends to make me selfish. I often find myself trying to figure out "when do I get to rest?" But, we committed each put each other first. So, despite my exhaustion, I have to try to think of Chris and his needs before my own. Some days, I left him sleep in or take a nap, so HE can rest and recover. Then some days he lets me sleep in or take a nap. We also share the housework, considering it helping the other so it doesn't all fall on just one of our shoulders. But putting the other first can be especially hard during an argument, but eventually one of us "gives in" and apologizes. When he does it first, it makes me feel loved and grateful and remorseful over the fight we were having. So when I remember this, I make sure to return the favor after the next fight. It is hard to swallow your pride and be the first one to apologize or initiate the make-up. But it never fails to make the other feel loved, and isn't that the goal?

2- TIME! there is never enough!! However, it is IMPERATIVE that parents make time for each other!   We make it a goal to have a date night at least once a month. Finding a sitter can get challenging! But the benefits of together time and real conversations without interruptions is very worth it!

Try it sometime. Put your spouse before yourself and see what happens. And make time for a date night, and see what happens.



PS: What have you found to be a secret to a successful marriage? Is there something you wish you could change/do better? I have a list I could share (and probably will one day)! Let's take off our masks and be real and help each other improve our marriages!

A Picture of Real Love

This has been a really tough week. We found out on Monday that my sweet mother-in-law would not live past the end of the week. Yesterday at 11:20 am, she indeed went home to be with the Lord.

As painful as this process has been, Chris and I feel tremendously blessed by the picture of Real Love we have seen between Larry and Sherry. In almost 42 years of marriage, Chris saw them love each other through good times and bad. He saw them fight and make up, so much so that he grew up assuming all marriages last forever, and fights are just bumps in the road, not a fork in the road to cause separation. They modeled a selfless love to each of their boys, and to everyone else who knew them. Even to the very end, they were each thinking only about the other before themselves: Larry would not leave her side, and Sherry, on her deathbed would "nag" at him: "Larry, did you eat? Larry, go home and get some rest! Larry, make sure you eat something!" All the while, he is holding her hand, rubbing it to keep it warm as she passed from this life to the next.


I cannot fathom how painful that must have been for both of them. But to the end, he was holding her hand, loving her.


She asked him earlier this week what he thought it was like to die. His answer I think is the most beautiful one I have ever heard. He said, "Well, I think it's like when you are a kid and you fall asleep in the living room and your parents carry you to bed. You wake up in the morning in your own bed and you don't know how you got there. I think you just fall asleep here on earth and wake up in Heaven."  That answer gave her such peace.


All of us were staying together at their house to be near her these last few days. She was in pain, yet fighting to not leave us.  Yesterday morning, as she kept fighting, Larry finally told her, "it's OK for you to go."  Chris tells me it was soon after she went. Like she needed to know Larry was OK with it; that we would all be OK with it. And though it is so very painful for us, we KNOW she is with the Lord today, has been for almost a whole day now! And she is whole, and happy and no longer in pain. She is wither her parents she lost years ago, holding our baby Camryn we lost in November 2009, as well as the one my sister-in-law lost in January of that year. 


Though painful, I had to share this with you because it is yet another example of the Peace that comes from our Gracious Father to help us through things we can't understand. Thank you, Father. You are so Good to us.

WE LOVE YOU GRANNY/MOM/SHERRY!!! WE WILL MISS YOU GREATLY, BUT WE WILL CELEBRATE YOUR HOMECOMING 
AS YOU WISHED <3


AND WE LOVE YOU, PAPAW/DAD/LARRY!! YOUR EXAMPLE OF FAITH AND STRENGTH DURING THIS TIME IS A TESTAMENT TO 
YOUR LIVES TOGETHER!

THANK YOU BOTH for the example of Love 
you modeled for us all !!!!