“Well he sure grew up nice.” This was my first thought when I saw John standing there strong, tall and handsome at Bible camp. We had known each other as kids, but it had been over 10 years since we saw each other. I recognized him right away as being one of the two brothers I used to play with as a kid, but he didn’t remember me at first. It wasn’t until I reminded him that we used to play fooz ball together that he remembered me. I was that girl, the one that always used to beat him at the game. Needless to say, he didn’t like me when we were kids!
But now the year was 2002 and we weren’t kids anymore. For him, I guess you could say it was love at first sight. As the Bible camp came to a close, he asked me if we could write. I said no. I had come to the (mistaken) conclusion that he had been hit too many times in the head (he was a logger). Truth was, he was just nervous when he tried to talk to me.
I still remember how he seemed disappointed, but he was such a good sport about it. Years later he told me that my “no” crushed him. Loving him like I do now still hurts my heart to think of how I hurt him!
The next year, we saw each other again, and talked a little more. I realized that I maybe had been wrong about him the year before. This time when he asked to write, I said yes.
Less than a year later we were married on April 3rd.
After 15 years of marriage, 6 kids and some crazy ups and downs, we can honestly say, our love has deepened and grown over time! We grow more fond of each other with each passing year. When something happens, the first person we can’t wait to tell is each other.
But this all didn’t happen overnight, or without some work and even a few tears along the way!
John and I thought it would be fun to share with you all some things we have done right, and wrong through the years! So here’s a list of 15 things we’ve learned that we hope you enjoy reading.
Prayer Works
There was a time in our marriage early on where as we look back, we are both shocked we made it through! We know others that went through some of the same things and were not as fortunate. We believe we owe the fact that we made it through to God. Early in our marriage we started a ritual of praying together before John goes to work. We rarely miss days. At first, this ritual was a little awkward, but that awkwardness went away after a month or two. We both feel confident that we made it through because we never stopped praying together and for each other, God got us through!
Patience
Through challenging times, I think the hardest part is always waiting for God to do His work in the heart of your spouse or yourself. There are some issues that took years to work through, but for us, one thing that helped us to be patient was to remember our own flaws!
Never Give Up
Let’s clarify, it’s possible to give up without actually walking away from a marriage! Emotionally or physically giving up is something that maybe crossed one or the other’s mind through our toughest times…but we always worked to crush that idea almost as soon as it entered our minds. Looking at others we knew that had given up helped us eradicate the idea!
Love
We love each other. Beyond just attraction! There are times it took a little work for both parties. We’ve all heard that love is a verb, not simply a feeling, but I think Jase and Missy said it best in a way that impacted me to my core when I first heard the idea IN THIS VIDEO. In the video Jase said, “…we basically had a Godly agreement that we would help each other get to heaven…” I don’t know about you, but for us that defines true love!
Forgiveness
Of course part of loving means forgiving each other when the times call for it (1 Cor. 13:5)! I guess you could say that as long as something isn’t a salvation issue we turn blind eye’s over things that could potentially annoy us! Like the fact I’m ADD and leave trails of messes everywhere before I snap and go all OCD and clean up after myself!
Honesty is a must
I’m going to keep this part short and simple. If you chew tobacco, don’t try to hide it from your spouse for the first few months of marriage. Your spouse will find out. Honesty goes for big and small area’s.
Trust
Speaking of honesty, let’s talk trust. If you are dealing with broken trust, our hearts go out to you. There are many things that can break trust in a marriage, and sometimes people are just naturally un-trusting because of things that happened in the past prior to even meeting their spouse. John and I have dealt with broken trust for various reasons. Listen, if trust has been broken, we know first hand the struggle and the pain that goes with that. But we also know first hand that trust is a must in marriage, and that with God and willing hearts, broken trust can be rebuilt! God is a redeemer! Once again consistent prayer and never giving up are critical to rebuilding trust.
Reach out for & Accept Help
It can be really difficult to reach out and seek expert counsel when there are hard times in a marriage. But there are times we’ve been at such wit’s end that we finally prayed for wise counselors, and God provided. After we found help we wished we hadn’t been so afraid to reach out! As a result, we’ve learned to consistently seek ways to keep growing and fortifying our relationship. We especially love reading articles by Matthew and Lisa Jacobson HERE and HERE.
Communicate
If you let the sun go down on your anger you’ll be planting seeds that can grow to create wedges between the two of you. Silent wars, cold wars, whatever you want to call them are emotionally abusive. Just don’t do it!
Speaking Of Emotional Abuse….
Know what it is, and take it seriously. When I asked John for his help with this article, one of the things he emphasized was “being nice”. I think there are times in every marriage where one or both couples can be guilty of one form of emotional abuse or another, and simply put, emotional abuse is the absolute opposite of being nice. All forms of emotional abuse are against God’s scriptural will and plan for us, and will tear a marriage apart (or any relationship for that matter)! There are some forms of emotional abuse John and I were raised with (I think this goes for a lot of people). John and I have accepted one another as accountability partners to break any habits of emotional abuse-and if we slip up-we always apologize.
Don’t let seasons become permanent
The daily grind-sometimes it can take a toll on marriage for both parties. Here’s an example. Ever since we’ve been married I (Shayla) have been in the pregnant, nursing/sleepless nights, exhaustion, work/homeschool stage. John has always been in the providing from paycheck to paycheck stage. We often have gotten stuck in “survival” mode, as in letting the bazillions of urgent needs take over to the point we don’t think of taking breaks to spend quality time with each other. In other words, we’ve allowed seasons to become “the norm”. Lately, we have been trying to retrain our brains, slow down and enjoy more simple moments together and although it’s been a challenge with this many kids, it’s been such a blessing! We’ve recently discovered it’s kind of fun to cook together! I’ll keep you posted on how that continues. 😀
Help Each Other
We were both raised that there was women’s work and there was men’s work. For some reason, I don’t think either one of us even considered letting this mindset into our marriage. I think one of the reasons we are so close is because we work together on whatever it is that needs to be done and we practice empathy for each other in one another’s jobs (that the other can’t do).
We’ve Learned to Take Each Others Intuitions Seriously
This goes both ways. It seems that when one or the other of us has a bad feeling about someone or some situation and the other doesn’t take it to heart, it always ends expensively and badly! Time and time again! Last year was the year we both stopped and realized that that it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a big thing like a car purchase or gaining a new friend that the other has a bad feeling about, or a little thing like buying curriculum, by talking it over we almost always gain a perspective we hadn’t thought of, and we make better choices. We learned the hard and expensive way that God gave us each other not to operate individually but to work together.
Laughter
Okay, when John and I met I found his sense of humor very odd. I was tempted to tell him so at times. But I’m so glad I didn’t because after awhile something happened. I started getting his jokes. Then something else happened. I started joking around with him. Now we are always laughing, and it’s carried us through some hard times and eventually carried over to our kids. Laughter is something that consistently brings us together.
Support
One thing John and I always try to do for each other is stay in tuned with each others life passions and support that. We are each others biggest fans, and each one of us desperately want’s the others dreams to happen be they big or small, and we do what we can to find ways to contribute to making those dreams happen.
We hope this has been an enjoyable post for you and that you’ve got something out of it! If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy Why It’s Important To Apologize To Our Kids (When We Mess Up).
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