Six months of bliss…

I know it has been a while since I have posted! Married life is slowing me down. :) Actually, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Life is going at lightning speed. I really cannot believe Vermon and I have been married for six months.

(Disclaimer: What I am about to say is simply how marriage has illustrated some things to me, I am not saying that you can know God deeper if you are married. In fact, I encourage every single person not to waste a moment of the precious gift of singleness to questioning God's plans for your life...but to embrace this special time to be one with your God.)

I have never experienced such a sweet unity and oneness with anyone before as I have in marriage with Vermon. It has been such a wonderful and fun journey to see God knit our hearts together and make us more and more like-minded. As we are growing together in our marriage I have had many opportunities to examine what communion with the Lord should look like in my life. I look at my marriage and see how many of my decisions and actions are motivated by a desire to stay one, to love Vermon, and to serve and minister with him in this life. When I examine my marriage, it gives me many examples that I can look at to judge if my decisions and actions are in alignment with my even greater desire to be one with the Lord.

Something that has really struck me over the last six months is just how precious and sweet life can be when you are truly living in communion with the Lord. I look at the sacrifices I am willing to make to spend time with my husband and I see such great fruit in our marriage and feel so satisfied. How much more satisfied would we be if we made time to spend with our God. I think the greatest gift that God has given me in marriage is helping me to see a glimpse of the depth and union I can have with my heavenly father. More and more I am seeing that my motivation in life cannot be anything other then glorifying and worshiping my God. When that is the focus of my life, I find myself in the midst of this beautiful and meaningful life, no matter our circumstances.

The purpose of marriage is to point people toward Jesus. When a marriage is Christ-centered, it gives the community they are in a small glimmer of what life within the church should be like. Instead of our children within the church growing up cynical and hesitant about marriage, they grow up seeing this beautiful sacrificial love as a physical example of what a relationship with Jesus is like. Instead of single people feeling forgotten, they are surrounded by marriages that constantly remind them of the most intimate and whole union they can have only with Christ. When our friends that do not know Christ struggle, they can look to a self-sacrificial and unconditional love exhibited between two people and long to know this God that can produce such beauty.

I just want to continue to thank all of you who pray for us, our marriage, and the ministry that God is doing all around us. It means so much to us and we see God working. :)