Praying for your spouse is hard. There are times when I really have to sit and think about my prayers for my husband. When I pray for him, I have to wonder if what I am asking God for on behalf of my spouse is something that God wants for him or if it is my want for him. There are times when I have prayed for a change because it is what I wanted for my husband. I then spend a lot of time praying for what I want and becoming frustrated when the change doesn’t happen. This, in turn, frustrates my husband because I nag him to change to suit what I think is best for him. At that point, I am essentially trying to act like God. That is a sin, to believe that I know better. So, I needed to change the way I prayed. I began to ask my husband if there was something specific he wanted me to pray for. If there wasn’t, then I prayed for God’s will in my husband’s life. When I started praying for God’s will in my husband’s life, we both began receiving opportunities. I had more opportunities regarding the desire to pray for what I think my husband needs, and he has opportunities to follow what God calls him to. This has helped my marriage because nagging someone to change to suit what your will is does not work. Marriage does not mean pushing someone to grow if they are not ready. It means growing together and encouraging one another. It means loving each other through it all, working together to build a life together. Praying for your spouse is a selfless act that glorifies God.

Marriage is hard. It’s a choice, if you think about it. You make a choice to love your spouse for the rest of your lives, no matter what your situation is. We make promises of loving whether for richer or poorer and in sickness and in health. When we take these vows though, we may not always know what that will look like. My husband and I will be married four years this year, and to be honest it has not been perfect. We have to work on ourselves, and our marriage, due to trauma from past relationships. It is messy and ugly sometimes when we have to learn how to fight, compromise, and communicate. We had to learn how to love each other. Not because we couldn’t, but because we have our own love languages and needs. For my husband, he needs to feel appreciated. I remind him how awesome I think he is often, because in all fairness I lucked out. I married a man who is a wonderful husband and father. Me? I need hugs and to be told that I’m doing a great job. When he hugs me, I feel safe and secure. We also had to learn how to work together to fight the common enemy, rather than each other. It is so important to fight the problem instead of fighting the person you love. Part of that is listening to hear rather than listening to respond. I am the WORST at that. I end up listening to my husband’s words with the intent to defend my position rather than to hear what he is saying. That is not a way to communicate, that is a way to fight. Listening to hear the other side means understanding what they are experiencing, listening with the intent to argue is dismissive of their feelings. Marriage, like motherhood, is messy. It’s unpredictable yet wonderful. It is a covenant to put each other first, after God, before anything else in your life. When you wake up every day, you get the option to choose love. I hope you wake up and choose love and that your love always wakes up choosing you.

As mentioned previously, I am a stay-at-home mom raising two little ones while working on my masters and running a household with pets. I also happen to be a bit of a neat freak when it comes to my home. Dirty dishes being left in the sink is a major pet peeve and I am not a fan of things laying out all over the place. Our daughter has even learned to pick up after herself and she cleans her own room with some assistance. With my husband having a busy work schedule, he does a lot for the house on the weekends, and I handle the majority during the week. One problem was the number of times one of us started a task that was already done, thus causing multiple things to be done twice and others might be skipped. Being the overly organized human being that I am, I keep a list and calendar of the multiple home activities that I like to keep organized, however, my husband does not always see these things because they are written in a planner. This week I learned there is literally an app for everything and found one that allows us to keep track of household chores and who finished what. This was super helpful for me because it avoided someone accidentally placing dirty dishes in a clean dishwasher or washing a toilet twice. Sometimes technology is an amazing thing, and this happened to be one of those times. Now, if someone could create an app that gives me a variety of coffee recipes and step by step instructions on how to make all my favorite lattes I would be thrilled!

I do not trust easily. There have been too many moments in my life where someone has failed me. From friends to family and significant others, I have been left waiting for a promise to be kept. Now, I often anticipate a promise being broken. I have been diving into the Book of Proverbs recently. One that stood out to me is Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”. The first part of Trust has always been hard for me. Until the past two or so years of my life, I believed God was a God of destruction. I worried He is more likely to punish me, instead of comforting me. Now, when I read Trust, I read relying on God. Believing that He will comfort and care for me all the days of my life. I believe that God can and will work all things for my good. The next part of lean not on your understanding goes against everything in me. I have learned to rely on myself rather than others because I have been let down so many times before. How can I not trust myself? The purpose of this verse is to say that our human nature, emotions, our natural being outside of God can fall victim to deception. Satan plays on our insecurities, pain, embarrassment, the creation we were before God. Feelings are not fact, feelings are fleeting and vary but God does not. God is constant, He is unfailing, full of grace, and the giver of redemption. God cleans up the dirt of sin and gives us the opportunity to be new people in Him. Who else in our lives can do this? Who else can forgive us so freely? Can love us no matter what we do? Who else will greet us with open arms when we leave? Who else would leave the 99 and come after the 1? God is worthy of our trust; more so than we are worthy of the grace we have been given freely. So, although we may not always be able to trust the world, we can always trust God.