Tag Archive - Marriage

What’s Your Story – Jenn

May 13, 2012 in Daily Devotionals, Dating & Relationships with 0 Comments

Jenn is my first best friend.

Jenn and I met at North Coast Church’s college group and became best friends. It’s funny how God uses certain people to remind us who we are, and who bring out the best. Jenn is that person to me. I felt bad that I couldn’t be there for her when her story started.

Jenn became a single mom. She went through much criticism by her family, peers, the church—and worst of all herself. As a result of her choices she had a lot of questions to answer. My first question to Jenn was a heavy one, one that I’ve wrestled with myself. Why do you think Christians suffer?” I asked.

She said, “I believe Christians suffer for two reasons: one because of their poor choices, and two because we’re in the world. Sometimes we do get caught in the backwash of other people’s choices. Whether it is the person that ran the red light and hit your car—it wasn’t that you were doing anything wrong, but you were caught in the backwash.”

“How have you suffered?” I asked.

Jenn said, “Physically, I’ve suffered with my knee. Emotionally, with broken relationships because of choices I’ve made. Some of those have caused a little more psychological suffering and how I view the world. I don’t think anyone can escape those. Mine has been, you know, the life and death kind of suffering. When I was in Jr. High I was almost suicidal. That goes back to the emotional and psychological suffering, but even though I really see that as my lowest point emotionally I was able to be at the very bottom and look up at God and say, ‘I can’t take anymore, you gotta start changing this. If I’m at this point where I feel like this is the only option, you gotta start bringing me up.’

 “How did you react when you found out you were pregnant?”

Jenn said, “…I cried and I cried and I cried. I cried because my hopes and dreams of going to my dream college were shattered. I cried because I embarrassed and ashamed my family. I cried because it meant the whole world was going to see what my sins were and that I wasn’t the good little Christian girl I had portrayed I was.

At first I think everyone was shocked, but God has surrounded me with such amazing friends–they think I was going to beat myself up a lot more than any words they could say and they wrapped their arms around me and then encouraged me. I don’t think I could have made it through emotionally sound without the support of my family and friends. For the first two months, I just prayed that God would let me have a miscarriage. How mean is that? It was just a word to me. Finding out on the pregnancy test was just a word: pregnant. It told me my life was flipped upside down and I wanted it go to away. I wanted to sweep everything under the rug. I wanted to hide.”

“How has your view of pro life changed since giving birth?” I asked.

Jenn said, “I am still gung-ho for pro life. I’m a single mom. There are opportunities out there for you to make it, and even if you feel like you cannot physically, financially handle it -there’s adoption. I’m still pro life, and now that doesn’t mean that Satan didn’t tempt me when I first found out I was pregnant. That was the first way he tempted me—just to end it. None of my friends told me about abortion. I didn’t need them to. Satan was already there trying to plant seeds to the point where I looked it up, where I could get it done, how much it would cost, and what the side effects were. What God kept telling me in my head and in my heart was that two wrong’s don’t make a right. I learned that by my parents reciting it to me over and over again. Yes, I sinned and got pregnant, but having an abortion would not make it right.

I asked Jenn in light of her story, “Do you feel you made the right decision to keep your daughter, Elizabeth Evangeline?”

“Oh 100%. God has allowed me to see a different side of Him that I would have never seen without Lizzie in my life. I’ve known the Father God. I have known the pursuer God. I have not known the parent God until I had a child. When Lizzie put her tooth through her lip, I could see the relationship between God and I. I may slip and fall, but God is standing right next to me. He sees it everything. We live in a broken world. We still get hurt. It broke my heart to see my little girl cry so much it ripped me a part. And I can only imagine how God feels. What we go through—how much more does God break for us? Dealing with Lizzie and letting her be her own person and I have to let Lizzie be herself. There are also the non negotiables, you know-the 10 Commandments. I don’t always listen but those are the one He insisted on. He gives me enough freedom and free will to be me.”

I, Renee, remember watching Jenn go through isolation all the way in North Carolina. My heart broke. I couldn’t there for my best friend. She now had a child to take care of, and support. In the midst of all of that it was like I got to witness the most beautiful thing. Jenn transformed into a beautiful butterfly. The one I knew was always inside her. North Carolina was her cocoon and the more time she spent with God, all the suffering, brokenness, guilt, and shame was removed. She was even more beautiful to me.

To listen to Jenn’s story please click here or watch the video below.

What’s Your Story – Ashley

May 9, 2012 in Daily Devotionals, Dating & Relationships, The Church with 2 Comments

[Guest Post] I always had a close relationship with God, and felt I could always lean on Him.

In high school, I got a job at a leather store in the mall. I was a trainer on the football team and fell head over heels for popular guy on the team. I had my whole life planned out. I wanted to be a stay at home mom and be an active part of a church.

I knew I wanted to save myself for marriage, but I started to drift from God. He wasn’t into going to church or praying. I ended up dating him and we had a child born out of wedlock. We were engaged for about three years.

I wanted to join a church that I had been visiting, so I went down to the altar and spoke with a deacon. A few days later, I got a call from the membership Pastor at the church. He invited us into his office for a meeting. He advised that the church wouldn’t allow me to become a member unless we were married. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

I didn’t go back to church for almost 2 months when I finally talked him into getting married so I could be a part of that church.  

We got married, and things were already headed down hill. I had been a stay at home mom and recently had a got a part time job at a local retail store. He had started gambling and taking pain pills on top of his marijuana addiction. His six figure income supported his habits. The days continued to get worse.

He would come home late at night drunk and had been spending time after work at bars and strip clubs. I became depressed. I felt ugly on the inside and the outside.

Why wasn’t I beautiful anymore?  

Why didn’t he want to spend time with me?  

One night in our kitchen, I prayed over him as he was trying to crush a pill to snort. He was so angry that I put my hand over a line of pills that he had crushed, then he put me in a headlock that took me to the floor. I pleaded for him to let me go…He snorted the pill in front of me off the kitchen counter.

I was devastated.  

He took off to the bedroom and said he was leaving. I begged him to stay and talk.

He pulled out a gun and put it to my head and pushed me to the floor.

He yelled some profanities and took off out the door. I opened the door and yelled that I was calling the police. He came back up the steps with the gun and told me he was going to kill me. I kept locking the door as he was unlocking with his key. I prayed for God to please let me survive. I made it, and so did my son. It was a miracle that he slept through all the commotion.

I didn’t leave the marriage.

I thought I was doing the right thing. He would tell me that I had broken my vows because I was trying to leave him while he was sick (drugs were making him sick), and that I had promised to love him in sickness and in health.

At this point, I had taken on a job with a good company and could support myself and my son. My brother was very close to me, and he had been staying the night with us a lot and he could keep the arguments down at the house. I never told him about what he had done to me, but he knew something was up.

A few months after the gun incident, we took my son to a baseball game and came home to find my brother had passed away in his sleep on my couch.  

My three year old son and I had found him. This was the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me.

I wanted to know where God was and why was He letting this happen to me?

I tried counseling and buying books on how to save your marriage. It was the end.

He didn’t want to be a part of our lives.  

Drugs was his life.  

I had been reading in Job and all the trials he experienced. This is where I gained my strength and renewed my trust in the Lord. I attended Celebrate Recovery at my church, where I learned how to deal with my codependent nature. God had given me little signs in the form of hearts, that made me realize that He was beside me each step of the way.

I decided I needed to divorce.

My son and I had moved in with my parents. I reconnected with my boss from the leather store, and we began dating. We both were single parents with ex spouses who didn’t seem to care about anyone but themselves. We both had a strong Christian background. He proposed to me last year and we ended up marrying a few months later. May 14th is our one year anniversary!!

I can say that I am thankful for the trials that I went through to make it where I am today.

I have a wonderful, loving husband that prays with me and keeps me positive. He is a great father figure to my son. He works hard every day to provide for all of us. I stayed true to God during all my sufferings, and He comforted me. He blessed me with the greatest husband ever. I cannot wait to bow at His feet and thank Him for the many blessings He has bestowed upon me.  My best advice is to keep holding onto your faith when everything else is falling apart.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4).

Ashley is a 28 year old mom of an 8 year old, and a step mom to a 15 year old. I enjoy Bible study and love spending an immense amount of time with my husband and kids. Over the past year, I have learned a lot about marriage. I now understand why it is important to be married to someone with the same beliefs. It is also an amazing feeling when you spouse prays for you. Connect with Ashleigh on Twitter.

6 Month Wedding Anniversary

April 16, 2012 in Dating & Relationships with 7 Comments

I have learned much from Marc in the first six months since our wedding.

Because I love celebrating both small and large milestones–here are six lessons learned from the first six months (Oct. 15-Apr. 15)!

1. Insecurities Magnified. When I was saangle (really single) I thought it was my fault. I’m so glad for those years now that God spent teaching me how to replace the lies with truth because now that I’m married, my insecurities are only magnified.

2. Serving/Submitting to Marc is my joy. At first, I was so excited and grateful to serve Marc because God answered my 12-year-10-month-24-day-prayer. I now believe it’s because of prayer, God’s help, and understanding–that my husband is my most important ministry. I cherish the opportunity to serve him.

3. God has blessed me for being Marc’s wife. I gladly accept my new role. I have seen God actually bless me more for doing less because I put God first, my husband, and then everyone else–it’s wild!

4. My devotional times have changed. I used to spend time with God at the first and last part of my day. Now, I spend that time with my husband. Through the process of rearranging my time with Him–God has spoken to me in new and fresh ways.

5. Two becoming one. I used to read many books, including one I wrote about anticipating a marriage someday. All this goes out the window when you get married. Experience trumps knowledge. It’s way better and harder than I thought it would be!

6. God likes to show off. It’s not a coincidence that I married Marc before Not Another Dating Book, released. Every time I share my story I get to share how God did a miracle in my life through Marc. I think God likes it too!

To God be the glory.

Singleness Is NOT A Disease

April 10, 2012 in Dating & Relationships, On Writing with 8 Comments

[Guest Post] American culture values independence.

Somewhere between my twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh birthdays, my status as a single man in the church downgraded from laudable to questionable. People stopped celebrating my singleness as a gift affording me undivided focus on performing God’s will (see I Corinthians 7) and began seeing it as a problem. They also began analyzing why I had failed to solve it. The message was clear: My “malady” of being single was somehow my fault.

It wasn’t anything I did.

It was what I didn’t do enough of.

I didn’t do enough to prove my independence.

American men who cannot demonstrate enough independence begin to feel weak and undesirable. Once we hit twenty-five, any failure to become fully independent becomes pronounced—especially for men in the church.

Unless you are able to buy a house and afford to live in it by yourself, you might as well wear a sign on you that says, “Not suitable for marriage.”

At twenty-five, I was working my way through graduate school, driving a car that was held together by prayer, and living with a gracious family from my church. I was anything but independent, and I felt like a total failure. Then I visited Argentina the summer before my last year of graduate school.

In Argentina, all my presumptions about independence and manhood were challenged. I noticed how many of the single men or women lived with their families well into their twenties and thirties. They simply didn’t value independence the way I did.

The experience caused me to reexamine what the Bible has to say about independence.

I found out that God doesn’t like it nearly as much as his American children do. He’s into something quite different: interdependence. Why? Because it’s a reflection of his own mutually dependent, three-gods-in-one, nature. As early on as Genesis 2:18, God tells us it’s not good for a man to be alone (and lest you ladies think that doesn’t apply to you, the word for “man” here can also be translated as “human”). In Psalm 68:6, God tells us that he sets the solitary in families. In I Corinthians 12, we are given a lovely metaphor of the church as a body that can’t function unless each part works interdependently. Through scripture, the value on interdependence is upheld as God’s best for us all.

Independence can get ugly.

It promotes loneliness and teaches us to judge those who can’t make it on their own. It teaches us to never ask for help for fear we’ll appear weak. It prevents us from receiving God’s blessings that come through others. In contrast, interdependence is beautiful. It keeps us from staying lonely and builds compassion into our hearts.

When I learned to embrace interdependence as the cultural value of God’s kingdom, much of my frustration as an “old” single man faded away.

It didn’t change the fact that I was single.

It didn’t change how people treated me.

But it did change me.

So where does that leave you? Are you still striving after independence or have you embraced the kingdom value of interdependence? Do you even know where to start? Lest I leave you empty-handed, let me offer you some parting suggestions:

+Commit to a small group. Almost every church has them these days. Some churches are basically nothing more than networked small groups. As nice as Sunday morning worship services are, you can’t really experience interdependence in larger groups.

+Live in community, not alone. Remember that God sets the solitary in families. This doesn’t mean you should move back in with Mom and Dad, but you should consider finding people to occupy your extra rooms or seek to occupy someone else’s empty room.

+Borrow stuff (and share it, too). Have you ever wasted money on purchasing something you needed to use only once? Could you have borrowed that item from a friend? Independently minded people don’t even think to ask others about borrowing their stuff, and they don’t like lending it. That’s a far cry from the fine folks in Acts 4:32 who “had everything in common.”

+Become a people gatherer. Host events that promote interaction: Bible studies, potlucks, book clubs, game nights, etc. And don’t just invite your single friends. Married people need interdependence, too.

Vinnie Kinsella is in his early thirties and single, which makes him the male equivalent of a spinster by many churches’ standards. He works in the book publishing industry as a book editor and a consultant to independent publishers. He also teaches editing workshops and college classes in and around Portland, Oregon. If you ask him what he feels God has called him to do, he’ll look you square in the eye and say he’s already doing it.

Happy Easter

April 4, 2012 in On Writing with 3 Comments

I would like to wish you and your family a Happy Easter.

I’m really excited about an article I wrote because I anticipate my first Easter as a newlywed.

Easter exists.

I don’t know about you, but I need the resurrection.

I need the reminder of the empty tomb.

Jesus did actually die and come back to life.

To continue reading the article please click here.

Jesus is Risen! Jesus is Risen indeed!

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