Two Important Things Learned From Marriage

A long, LONG time ago, my sister-in-law Kaile wrote a blog about 6 things she had learned in her first 6 months of marriage: http://aspects-of-me.blogspot.com/2014/02/6-things-learned-from-6-months-of.html  I enjoyed reading it and was inspired to write a similar blog reflecting on my 5 years of marriage and hoped to draw an equivalent 5 things out.

Well, I came up with two.  Very hard ones.  And had to stop there because it made me realize that there is a lot more hard learning that I still have to do.  I'm not saying that marriage is only hard lessons, but in marriage there is an awful lot of self-sacrifice, which for Christians is simultaneously the most difficult and most necessary lesson we will have to learn.

The tough lesson of self-sacrifice comes even more into play when two become three, and marriage becomes not just marriage but parenting--which is the milestone Steve and I will be hitting in the next 5-6 weeks when our little guy enters the world.

So I figured I better post what I've got before Baby Boy arrives and I have a whole new phase of self-sacrifice to learn and it's even harder to finish things I've started.  :)

So here are two of the most important lessons I've learned in my 5 years of marriage.

1. Communicate, even when it's hard.  This was a hard one for me to learn.  I grew up believing with all my heart that negative emotions should not be shared with others.  And that conflicts were best handled by not handling them at all.  To say that my husband did not grow up believing these things would be an understatement.  Our worst, longest, most brutal nights in our first years consisted of a horrible cycle: I got upset, I shut my mouth, Stephen tried to pry everything out of me, and the harder he pried, the deeper I dove into anger, pain, silence, and resentment at him for prying.

To this day, when through a conversation my deepest negative emotions are brought to the surface for all to see, I'm still reminded of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Aslan takes his claws to Eustace's scaly exterior and removes his layers upon layers of dragon skin.  It is an extremely painful experience for Eustace.  And so extremely necessary.

While it's hard to face my own ugliness, God has given Stephen an amazing capacity to forgive, fully and without any consequences.  That forgiveness, I have learned, is SO much healthier in a relationship than simple conflict avoidance.

2. The difference between heat and thorns.  This is one I first learned from a counselor (Steve Green from Impact Biblical Counseling), and marriage became my platform for putting it into practice.  It is tied to Jesus' teaching from Mark 7:20-23, where he says, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,  coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”  To paraphrase Steve Green in his article "The Gospel Makes a Difference": You aren't angry at your spouse because they "made" you angry.  You are angry at them because deep down inside you have anger.  In metaphorical terms, your spouse's words or action are the heat that was applied to you--but the thorns that came to the surface in you were already there.  The heat just brought them out.  And the solution is to turn to the Cross in repentance for your thorns, and let Christ do His work to heal you from them.

This is not to say that your spouse has no thorns of his or her own.  For every fallen human being, thorns are a given!  But what we've learned is that it is not your job to make your spouse repent of his or her thorns.  That is the Holy Spirit's job.  Our job is to continually turn back to Christ to heal us from our own thorns, and to pray and trust the Holy Spirit to work on each other's thorns. 

Summer 2012

Our summer has been surprisingly eventful, particularly toward the end.  In July, we went on a vacation to the Washington coast with Stephen's parents and alllllll his siblings, including Mary and Tim and their two little ones, and also Cari's boyfriend, Eric.  We just spent a week at a resort town in the process of development, walking on the beach, hanging out and playing games at the house, swimming in the pool and relaxing in the hot tub.  We each took turns cooking dinner.  We had some very tasty steak-and-veggie kabobs by Cari and Eric, a yummy Mexican meal by Tim and Mary, and Stephen and I made spaghetti.  It was a very relaxing, laid-back vacation all together.


Shortly after the family vacation, Stephen shot his first paid wedding gig.  There is a lot invested in wedding days, so he was under a lot of stress leading up to the wedding day, and also some in the photo editing phase as well.  But he finished it, and the couple was very, very pleased with the photos, for which we are very thankful.


In August, one of my college friends got married, so I flew down to Idaho and stayed with my aunt, uncle, and cousin and attended Mindy's wedding, which was butterfly garden themed--very pretty!  They put a lot of humorous personal touches to their ceremony and the reception was one big, fun party, complete with a photo booth and props. :)  I got to catch up with some old friends and meet some new ones and had a really good weekend all together.  I am really glad I got to go.

My car's A/C stopped working sometime earlier this year, and we finally took it to get checked out in August, and found out we had to get a new part and the whole thing had to be reassembled.  God graciously provided the money for us, and we fixed it toward the end of August. In the same month, I had to get a new car key, because the buttons on my remote-entry car key didn't work anymore!  And today I got into a rear-end car accident (I was rear-ended by a car who was rear-ended by a car), but I'm not hurt at all and the damage to my car is very minimal.  The accident was not my fault at all, so insurance will be taking care of everything.

We've had an Indian summer this September, with temperatures in the high 80s and 90s.  I think the weather is trying to make up for the very cold and dark beginning of summer we had!  For now I am totally okay with sunshiny weather....I know those cold dark days are coming again!


Our church got a new music pastor, an answer to prayer after 3 years of searching for the right person.  Our church is now able to do so much more music-wise than we were before, because our temporary worship leader was doing so much other work in his position as Communications Director.  Now at our women's Bible study, Mark (the new worship pastor) comes and leads us in worship with a guitar, and we don't have to sing off a CD!  I am especially thankful for that.

Another answer to prayer is that Stephen got a nice raise this year, and we are so grateful for God's provision there!  Now it is actually a possibility for us to move into a bigger apartment, although we won't be taking advantage of that just yet.  For now it does ease up our budget some, and we'll hopefully be able to start putting more money toward debt repayment.

Overall, I think this year has been an incredible year of growth for us and our marriage.  I've grown in my faith in leaps and bounds, and as I've spiritually matured, I'm maturing in other ways.  Praise God for His faithfulness!  I sense good changes coming up for us.  I'm hoping to find my niche in the church we attend, although I'm not sure what that is yet.  And Stephen will be leading our regular small group Bible study again.  This year we will probably be going through 1 Corinthians to go along with our pastor's sermon series. You can pray for us through that.  We want to help our fellow brothers and sisters deepen their faith, as many of them are new Christians or just aren't sure how to grow deeper.  So you can be praying especially for Stephen as he bears the responsibility of teacher, and for me as I try to figure out where I fit into the mix.

Those are the biggest pieces of news.  Thank you for your prayers and your support!  You don't know how much it helps. :)

Summer 2011 Update

Babies all around me! I have officially reached the stage of life where most of my friends are pregnant or new moms. Two of the couples in our small group had babies in the late winter, and the third couple is expecting in early to mid-September. We aren't entirely sure what is going to become of our group as the couples in it move to the next stage of life. My best friend is also expecting her first child in early October. I will hopefully get to see her in August when she has one of her baby showers!

Our own lives seem to be on hold until we reach a better financial position. We hear in August whether Stephen will be receiving a raise at his current job. I still work one day a week, Saturday, delivering flowers. I still love my job, but continue to look around for another part-time position that could fill my days and help with bills and saving up for a house.

Speaking of saving, I've begun saving up for an electric piano that regularly comes out toward the end of the year at CostCo. I took a fantastic piano workshop course that taught how to play the piano with chords instead of reading notes on a page--something I've been really anxious to learn since watching a college classmate play piano with a jazz band like it was nothing at all. I go up to my mom's to practice on her piano, but I can't wait until I have an electric piano of my own! I love to play the piano, even though I hate it when people listen...LOL. :)

My sister continues to serve the country on the east coast of the U.S., logging away airplane parts for the record books. She's also taking some dance classes. She's doing well, with the exception of some medical problems that keep surfacing. She's looking at deployment next year, which makes us nervous, of course...But we have to learn to trust God with our loved ones.

It's been a ridiculously cold and gray spring/summer on the west coast. We haven't had more than seven days above 70, and April and March were way wetter than normal. My husband keeps telling me summer never officially starts here until July 5th, but I sure am tired of the gray.

Stephen and I are part of the Marriage Ministry Team of our church, and we just put on a really fun murder mystery dessert theatre-- set in the wild, wild west! I got to play Annie Elmley, a sharpshooting cowgirl. I could almost have been the murderer, but it turned out to be the most seemingly innocuous character there! Isn't that always how it goes? :)

In the meantime, I continue to learn more and more about the Gospel. Did you know that the heart of the Gospel is simply Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on the Cross? That that is how God dealt with His wrath against us for our sins? When I learned the truth of this, I was floored at the simplicity. I think I thought the Gospel was to be a good person to please God, and that Jesus somehow mysteriously enables us to do that. That is true, too, but it isn't the heart of the Gospel! Christianity is not about being a good person, but about the One who took our punishment.

I was part of a Women's Bible Study this winter/spring. I got to meet a lot of neat women at my church and am thankful to know more faces and names and personalities there. Countryside is a medium-big church and it's hard to get to know people unless you get involved. I'll be doing another women's Bible study this summer, led by our assistant pastor's wife in their home. We will be learning about a woman's identity in Christ and how it works out in her everyday life.

Stephen and I will also be official members of Countryside in the next month. We are thankful that we have found a good church to be a part of and get involved with.

And I Thought My Life Was Boring!

Well, THAT was exciting!!!

I was calmly sitting in the office, working on a special Christmas scrapbooking project. I was about to place a sticker down on a page when I heard feet scrambling up our staircase, a frantic hammering on our door and a muffled exclamation I almost couldn't make out. But after a second the words registered in my mind: "FIRE! GET OUT!"

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that no clear thoughts went through my head. I went into total panic. Paper pad and sticker in hand, my brain checked out and sheer survival mode kicked in. "What?!" I shouted to the door as I ran to it. "Where?!" As I opened it, I heard the manager say, "Over there!" Somewhere in the back of my brain, I noted the irony of seeing my manager clopping as fast as she could down the stairs in her suit jacket, pencil skirt and heels to go evacuate the other apartment dwellers, looking pretty panicked herself. Then I glanced to the right and saw a wall of orange flames leaping up from the front of one of the garages next to our apartment building. It felt like that moment in movies where you see a close-up of a terrified stare and the blazing fire reflecting in it.

I tore around the apartment trying to make sense of what to do. I still had a sticker on my hand and I couldn't pick anything up with that hand until I found somewhere to put the sticker down, and I couldn't just throw it away because it was the only one I had in that color and I NEEDED to put it on the paper, but I couldn't think straight enough to find the right spot in this state, so I ended up just plopping the paper pad down on the kitchen table and sticking the sticker on a receipt next to it. In my mind I had images of flames jumping from a tree to a house, or in this case a garage to a house, and my only thought was, "GET OUT!" I grabbed just my jacket and my purse and ran out the door, only thinking to grab my keys at the last minute because they were hanging on their hook next to the door. And then for some stupid reason I locked the door behind me. But the last image I had was Genevieve staring at me as I went out the door. And it suddenly dawned on me that if I left Genevieve in there and our house caught on fire--this thought was interrupted by a sudden flash of logic which cut my panic down to size. The fire trucks and fire fighters were already here and already dousing the fire and it was nowhere near enough to the apartment to catch it on fire, and the wind was blowing the other direction.

My thoughts started making more sense, but I was still shaken up. If I wasn't in danger, should I go back into the apartment? But the manager had told us to get out. And dozens of families were standing outside their apartments. She probably didn't want us back in until it was under control. That made sense anyway.

I called Stephen's cell. He didn't answer, so I called his work number, praying he would answer. Thankfully, he did. I watched the thick, billowing smoke and couldn't even think how to begin for a moment. Finally I told him everything that had happened so far--the knock on the door, seeing the fire, grabbing my coat and purse. "Did you grab anything else?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Not even Genevieve!" And then I just rambled to him, processing out loud. "Should I go back in and get things? It's not reaching over to our apartment."

"Maybe our laptops, and the network drive," said Stephen.

We talked for several minutes as I watched the fire being taken under control. Our neighbor with the 5 kids went back into the house at one point briefly, and came back out with her children's jackets. I agreed to get the laptops and network drive out of the house and just at least put them in our car.

At one point, I finally said, "I wish you were here." Stephen said he could probably call his boss and explain the situation and ask if he could come home, at least temporarily. That sounded good to me. "I'll call you back," Stephen said and we hung up.

A minute later he called. "I'm coming home!" he announced.

After we hung up again, I decided to go get the computers and network drive. It was more out of a kind of follow-through with what I said, though, because by now the fire was out and there was just smoke. It was a little scary being in the apartment--I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be or not, and it made me nervous not being able to see the fire through to its bitter end and make SURE it was out. I didn't want to stay in there, not knowing, for long.

People were still standing outside, watching. I watched with them as the firefighters came around the back of the garage with a chainsaw and some picks and things. They sawed open the back of the garage and took it off in pieces. Everybody got closer, LOL. One of my neighbors had gotten out his digital camera and was taking pictures. Several people were taking cell phone shots.

We were already losing daylight, but I could see the remains of a charred car in there. Smoke still swirled up at the top of the roof. One little boy called out to a little girl asking what happened. I wish I could have understood what she said, but all I caught was, "He got burned here," and saw the girl gesture to her left forearm.

Stephen finally arrived and we stood watching the excitement for a few minutes. A little smoke still swirled out, but the firemen were cleaning up. I wasn't ready to go into the apartment until I heard it was okay, so Stephen and I asked a fireman as he rolled up the fire hose. "Yeah, the apartments are fine," said the fireman confidently. "You can go back in." Phew!!

Stephen left shortly afterward. I brought back in the laptop and network drive, still a little nervous about doing so. I'll tell you one thing I learned from this experience. We are NOT prepared in any way for the event of a real fire on our house. When Steve and I were on the phone, we talked about writing up a 5-step plan or something to help us get what's important out of the house if it does catch on fire. And I also learned that I really need to clean up, because it was extremely difficult to run around and get anything done or even get TO the important stuff with the current state of our house. Scary! So maybe this was a little extra motivation from God to get my house cleaned up. :) And also extra motivation for fire safety... I will never doubt Stephen again when he tells us to keep things away from the baseboards!

Wisdom from Another

I felt like standing up and applauding after reading this blog from a mother of four. Brilliantly spoken.

Long Week.

What an interesting week it's been.

Yesterday Stephen and I took my car out to a nearby Blockbuster to rent Indiana Jones.  It was a 3-mile trip.  But when we pulled into the parking lot and parked, we noticed at the same time that my engine was steaming.

We got out to check on it and I got a crash course from Stephen on radiators.  Apparently there are these tubes throughout my engine that carry water.  The tubes carry hot, hot water to the front of the car (the radiator) so it can be cooled and taken back around the engine to keep the parts cool.  So if you hear or see steam coming from your car (we heard AND saw it), it means there's a hole in one of those tubes, and the steam from the hot water is escaping.

That's a bad thing, because it means that water (in the form of steam) is escaping out those tubes.  And if those tubes leak all the water out, there will be nothing to cool my engine down... And that could lead to any number of REALLY BAD things happening!

You learn something new every day.

We couldn't really do much at the time except let it cool off and then drive it back home to make an appointment with a mechanic tomorrow morning.  So we got our movie and drove home.  The car hissed again when we pulled up into our own parking space, although there was less steam. 

When we got inside, I discovered Stephen was under the impression that I was just going to stay home all week or however long I needed to until we got my car looked at.  Normally that would be easy; I usually stay home.  But it had to happen this week of all weeks.

"But...I have a root canal tomorrow at 12:30.  And counseling on Wednesday at 2:00.  And Melanie's at 3:30," I reminded him.

Counseling and Melanie's could slide or be canceled, but the root canal definitely could not.  I've been waiting on it since November, and we've been sitting on pins and needles, praying that the tooth would not get worse before January, when our insurance kicked in for the new year.  We had to get that tooth fixed!

So we had two options:

1) Stephen would try to get the morning off and take the car in tomorrow.  Or if that didn't work...

2) Tomorrow morning I would take Stephen to work, take his car to the dentist and back, and then pick him up from work.

He called his boss to see if it were possible to get the morning off.  She said that a guy who works with him had called in sick, so they needed Stephen there unless the guy could come to work the next morning.  But they wouldn't know until 7:00 the next morning when the guy came in or didn't come in.

So more waiting.  Maybe God's trying to give us some lessons in trust and patience. :)

The next morning Steve got up out of bed at about 7:20 and called into work.  The guy had, indeed, come in, so Stephen got the morning off and took my car to the auto shop.  I had to leave at noon--he told me that I could take his car if he wasn't back in time.  Nervous as that made me (I think I've only driven his car once), I agreed.  Didn't have a whole lot of other choice.

12:00 drew near and I started to get more nervous.  I tried calling Steve, but he had left his phone at home!  Then, at 11:35 or so, I heard my car horn honk outside our apartment.

I opened the door and watched Steve in anticipation as he climbed the stairs.

"So?  Did they get it fixed?"

"Nothing was wrong with it," Steve said.

"What?!  What'd they say?"

"They checked everything and said nothing was wrong.  They said the steam probably came from splashing in a puddle and getting water on one of the hot parts of the car.  And the hissing is the A/C decompressing, because apparently when you put your car on Defrost, it uses the A/C.  They charged me $50 to tell me nothing was wrong with my car, though."

Oy.  Oh well, at least it got a good check-up done! 

"So you can take your car to the dentist appointment," Stephen finished. "I've got to get to work myself."

So the car's fine, but it sure scared us.

I ate a bowl of cereal and some yogurt before I headed into my lovely dentist appointment, knowing from experience that I better eat something, or I'd be in a bad way after all the trauma in my mouth was done.  Have I mentioned this is my 4th root canal in my lifetime?

I have all sorts of mouth and teeth problems.  I think it's part genetic and part hygiene, but I signficantly improved my hygiene after getting that 3rd root canal done and intend to keep doing so, so this shall be a scientific experiment to prove whether it's genes or hygiene.

I swear this root canal was the longest 2 hours of my life.  I don't know if these tooth roots were particularly stupid or what, but in my other 3 root canals, the procedure was pretty straightforward:  drill a hole to the roots.  Clean out the roots.  Fill the roots.  The end.  This time the drilled forever, and then they kept alternating: drill, clean, drill, clean, drill, clean.  UGH.  Enough with the vibrating in my head!!  Finally they got out the clove oil, which I know is the end of the procedure.  And when they were just about done, the doctor said, "Oh, there's a bit of decay here."

More drilling.

On top of all this, I had a headache/neckache when I finally got to sit up, the doctor wouldn't tell me anything during the whole procedure, the hygienist wasn't that great of company either, and at the end of two hours the Novacaine was starting to wear off, so my poor mouth was feeling all the stress of having my mouth clamped open and my teeth drilled into and shoved all around.  :(

The one good thing I have to say was that, because they did this before the tooth got really bad, I didn't have two seconds of hellish pain like I did on those first two root canals, which were absess teeth.  There wasn't any pain like that at all; just a lot of aching.

After the root canal was finished, I went to see the general dentistry gal to fill in the tooth a little bit, in preparation for its crown.  (The guy who does root canals is called an endodontist.) Normally, I don't like to see her, but this time, her chattiness and high-pitched voice was a welcome relief after the silent torture of the endodontical procedure.  And the hygienist was a lot of fun too.  She and the doctor had an amusing conversation about hair color. :)

So out of the dentist chair, up to the payment desk.  I was charged $40 more than expected and given a detailed outline of all the costs for the root canals and the crowns, which sure didn't put Stephen's or my mind at ease about our financial state.  Luckily, upon returning home, I had a few responses to job applications, which I am going to check right now.

Hopefully the rest of this week won't be as stressful as these first two days have been. :P