A mommy of two?

 

I have written about how it was for me to be pregnant with a toddler. But I haven’t written about what it’s like having two outside of my belly. Well here it goes.

 

When my second baby was born, things were going good. My first born didn’t know what was going on, despite how much we talked to him about his little brother before he was born. He stayed with my husband’s parents while we were in the hospital. When he came in to see the baby for the first time, his light bulb hadn’t come on yet. He didn’t know that that was his brother. I was a little scared that he would be mad at me and that our bond had been broken the moment he saw me holding his little brother.

I remember the moment the light bulb came on in his head. It was the next day after he came back to the hospital with his daddy to pick the new baby and I up. His eyes were focusing on his little brother and I saw it. I saw the light come from behind his pupils and shine down on his little brother. He bent over just enough to give his brother a kiss on the head. Then he looked at me as I explained to him that he had a little brother now. He didn’t seem mad, but he wasn’t being quite himself.

Being on an emotional roller coaster, I took it as though our bond had been broken. I thought that he would never love me the same and that I was going to be the bad guy for the rest of his life. I jumped to conclusions at every little difference that was happening. My body was going through so many changes and had been through so much trauma. I didn’t give myself a break, because even though I was expecting things to change, I tried my hardest to keep them the same.

 

There were so many times after we got home that I would just burst out in tears when my oldest would smile at me or even just acknowledge me. It took away from my bonding time with the new baby, because I was so worried about how our oldest baby felt. That isn’t a bad thing, to worry about how your babies feel, but there are times when you can’t help how they feel. I was so wrapped up in what I could do to help him not feel certain ways.

Then I realized that there wasn’t anything that I could do to keep him from feeling bad things towards me and the new baby. I realized that it’s only natural and that it was inevitable. If it wasn’t going to happen at first, then it would happen later. No matter what, it was going to happen. After I accepted that, things got so much better.

I didn’t begin to ignore my toddler’s feelings, I embraced them. I learned from them and I’m still trying to figure them out completely.

I made sure that every time the new baby was asleep, I spent my time holding our toddler and playing with him. Now that the baby is older, it’s easier to spend time with them both at the same time while they’re both awake. (There’s only a few rare moments when they are both sleeping and I’m able to have some time to myself, or time to spend with my husband.)

Our oldest didn’t understand, at first, why his little brother couldn’t play like him. He didn’t understand why his little brother couldn’t ride on his tractor or go outside with him. We had to keep explaining to him that his little brother was just a baby and that he doesn’t know how to do everything that a big boy knows how to do. We still have to do that today, but now we have to do it more when our new baby grabs our toddler’s shirt or starts hitting him in the face. Before our toddler hits back, because he makes that angry “Hulk face” and balls his fists up, we have to explain to him that the new baby doesn’t understand what he’s doing and doesn’t mean to hurt him.

Our big boy has his tantrums every now and then, about the smallest things of course. Our little boy has started having tantrums as well. Especially when he sees something that he wants and you don’t give it to him. Yes, there have been moments when they both have tantrums at the SAME time, about totally different things. I can’t always handle those moments, so I walk into another room or I just sit there and watch them cry (just long enough to catch my breath). There are days when I can handle those moments and I start doing something silly to try to make them both smile or I start singing silly songs to get their attention.

While I was pregnant with our second baby, my husband and I transitioned our toddler into his own bed. Before, he was sleeping in our bed with us. We weaned him from breastfeeding, potty trained him, and moved him into his own bed before the new baby was born. They were big changes, but we did them gradual enough to where they are still working out today.

Three months after the baby was born, we moved our first born into his own room. He sleeps in his own bed, in his own room. We have the new baby in our bed (we tried keeping him in his bassinet at night, but it didn’t work out, so bed sharing it is). At first, our toddler didn’t understand why he had to sleep in his bed and the baby slept in the bed with us. Every night for a few weeks we had to explain to him that he was a big boy and he had to sleep in his big boy bed in his own big boy room. He liked being called a big boy and he liked that he had things that he calls his own. We’ll ask him what he is and he’ll say, “I big boy.” He is proud of that and that makes me proud, because it helps with explaining things to him about his little brother. Even though it hurts that he’s growing up so fast, it’s still a good feeling to see him grow and understand.

 

At first, our big boy wondered why the baby was getting some of mommy’s milk and he wasn’t. We told him that mommy’s milk was for baby brother now and that he gets to drink big boy cow’s milk from the refrigerator. He still doesn’t understand completely, but he understands enough to not ask about it anymore. He loves cow’s milk, especially chocolate milk. Tandem nursing may be for some, but it wasn’t and isn’t for us. I’m not sure why, exactly. We are happy with the way things are going now and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

 

We’re starting a new adventure with solid foods and the baby. He’s starting to eat purees. Our oldest is always wanting a bite of his baby brother’s food and I keep trying to tell him that it’s BABY food and that he needs to eat his big boy food. He keeps asking for some baby food though. So I’ve been giving him one bite each feeding and that seems to satisfy him enough to not want any after that. He thinks that he’s missing out on something that I’m giving the baby. When really, it’s the baby missing out on what he’s eating.

 

Right now, we’re working on sharing. Our toddler has a hard time sharing anything. Even if it doesn’t belong to him and it belongs to the baby. He still calls it his and doesn’t want to share it with the baby. There’s the old toys that USED to be his, the ones he got bored with and is too old to play with; he now LOVES to play with them. We saved a walker that looks like a car from when he was learning to walk. We gave that walker to our youngest for Christmas. Christmas morning, our oldest runs in the living room and climbs into the walker and starts playing in it. I just laughed and let him play in it for a while and I had to explain to him a few times that it’s the baby’s walker now and that he’s too big to be playing in it. Even after he got out of it and we put the baby in it, he still tried getting in it WITH the baby. I’ve been letting our toddler play with all of the baby’s toys that he has gotten for Christmas, just to avoid temper tantrums and toy snatching. It’s important that he knows how to share, because it keeps him from being greedy and self-centered. God teaches us that sharing is a way to show someone that we care and I want him to know that. Sometimes sharing is the only way we can show someone we care.

There are times that our toddler randomly walks up to the baby and gives him a hefty squeeze and a nice kiss on the head. He tells the baby, “Love you very much.” Of course that makes my heart melt down to my toes.

 

There are times when the baby will be babbling and yelling and our toddler thinks that the baby is yelling at him. So he goes up to him and points his finger at him and says, “No, (baby’s name).”
That looks too familiar.

 

There are times when our oldest will walk into the room and the baby will get so excited and just start laughing at him. Our oldest doesn’t notice sometimes. There have been times when he does notice and he’ll do one of two things. He’ll smile, squeak, then laugh or he’ll squish his face up and shake his head. I just love that they’re interacting with each other.

 

There are times that the baby will put a toy in his mouth and our toddler will walk over to him and pull it out of his mouth and tell him no. I can’t tell if it’s because he just wants to be bossy or if he genuinely cares that the baby could hurt himself.

 

There are times when I’ll have the baby almost asleep and then our toddler squeals at the top of his lungs and gets the baby’s attention. Or I’ll be nursing the baby to sleep and our toddler will come up to me to talk to me and the baby will unlatch on a letdown and milk will go everywhere.

 

There are times when our toddler wants to play ball while I’m rocking or nursing the baby to sleep. I’ve been hit in the face with the ball countless times.

In order to get anything done around the house, I have to do things very quickly or parts of one job at different times of the day. For example: I put baby down in his bouncer, turn the radio on for toddler, haul hoofy to the sink to wash some dishes. I wash a few dishes, baby is hungry again, toddler wants me to hold him and dance. I pick up the toddler, head into the living room to feed baby, sit toddler down beside me, get baby out of bouncer, feed baby. Baby is full, put baby down on a blanket with a few toys, tell toddler to stay in here and show baby toys, haul hoofy back into the kitchen to wash some more dishes. Oh, wait, there’s some clean clothes that needs folding on the dining room table. I fold some clothes on the table while watching the boys play on the floor. Toddler won’t share baby’s toys, so I fuss at him a little until he comes to me wanting me to hold him some more. I pick up toddler and dance with him some, put him down and do some more dishes. I pick baby off of the floor, because he’s getting bored and cranky. The cycle just keeps going on and on until I’m able to get anywhere with anything. Then my husband gets home and sometimes I have it all done, but most of the time…. I have nothing done. No matter how hard I worked all day to get anything done, it looks as if I did absolutely nothing.

Going out anywhere is a whole different story than it was before. Getting ready takes twice as long and it definitely takes team work. I wouldn’t ever be able to look half decent if it wasn’t for my husband’s help. He usually gets himself and our toddler ready while I take care of the baby and myself. We have two HUGE car seats to deal with. They’re both convertible and we have to make sure they both fit right and safely in our affordable vehicle. There’s so many buckles, latches, and as they grow, adjustments.

 Keeping both of them entertained until we get to our destination isn’t always easy…. Unless they’re both asleep. I sit in the back seat with them when we go anywhere; my husband usually drives. We have this toy that we’ve been using to keep them both entertained. The songs that that particular toy sings are going to be engraved into my and my husband’s brains forever. They’re musical bongo drums, “Hey, Big Bongo! Hey, Little Buddy!” I’m sure we will never forget those drums. Also, there’s my singing. I sing all kinds of songs to them. My husband and I both do. From their toys’ songs to ‘Ice Ice Baby’. There was a time that I was singing to them in the car, both of the boys were cranky. I was singing my heart out. My husband looks at me through the rearview mirror on one of the drawn out notes of ‘Go tell it on the Mountain’ and says, “Don’t sing like that, it sounds like there’s something wrong with one of the car tires.” We still joke about it, because he wasn’t trying to be mean. Just honest, right?

I feel like that’s why I’m becoming a hermit. It takes so much to go anywhere and I don’t have the energy to do it sometimes.

 

Both of our boys love their daddy something fierce. They both want to be held by him and have his attention. When my husband gets home from work, if they’re awake, they both do whatever they can to get their daddy’s attention. Our oldest has the advantage, of course, since he can walk and follow his daddy everywhere he goes. Our youngest just stays where he’s at with a huge smile on his face and says, “Heh!” We think he’s saying, “Hey!” So that’s what we say back, “Hey!” He just laughs and starts bouncing or kicking his legs.

 

We always have the same conversations with everyone about our boys. I can’t count how many times we’ve been asked if our oldest was the same when he was that age. Our answer is always, “Nooo, they are totally different!” Which is true, because our first born was so calm and attentive at six months. Our second baby is so smiley and happy! He’ll laugh about everything, unless he’s hungry. He doesn’t have as long of an attention span and he’s so active. They are so different even though they look very similar. Everyone tells us that they look just alike. I don’t agree, but I can see how they think so. I’m with them every day and see every side of them. So they look completely different to me.

 

We are so excited that our first born has a brother to grow up with. We can’t wait to see how they’re going to get along and how close they are going to be. It excites me every time I see our boys communicate with each other and when I see them get along. It makes me so happy and it takes away that guilty feeling I had for not spending more time with just our first born. Yes, I went through that. I felt like I was betraying him and that he was going to grow up resenting me because of having another baby. Then I remembered how I feel about my brother and I never have felt that way. Also, our oldest started communicating with the baby and started helping me take care of him. That guilty feeling went away and left a new feeling: excitement.

 I don’t want that excitement to get in the way of me enjoying the moments when they’re still small, though. It’s hard to keep it from getting in the way of that. But just breathing and taking things as they come, helps. We hardly plan anything too far ahead anymore and we may still talk about what we’d like to see happen in the future, but we don’t dwell on it as much. We just take each day one at a time and at the end of the day, we thank God for it.

 

Our boys are so precious to us, but we can’t forget who they are even more precious to. They are even more precious to God. They aren’t really ours. They are God’s children and they were sent to us just for caretaking so that they can fill out their purpose that God has for them on this earth. Keeping that in mind helps motivate me to do my best at taking care of them and making sure they are taught about God first and foremost.

We are blessed to have one child and even more with two. I’m looking forward to having more, but that can wait another few years or more… no doubt about that.

My Top 10 New Years Resolutions

 

I have always been a goal oriented person. I have always set goals for myself and I have always made sure that I would do whatever it takes to reach those goals. I used to push myself beyond my limits sometimes, just to reach my goal.

People used to compliment me about how goal oriented I was and how successful I was pushing myself to be.

 

After I’ve become a wife and mother of two… I’m pretty sure I’ve lost some of that goal setting motivation. I’ve even stopped making New Year’s resolutions, because I would make them and stick to them for a week then I would just forget about them and go back to what I was doing before. I feel like I’ve let myself down a little bit just to make sure everyone else is happy before myself. Which isn’t such a bad thing, but in order for me to take care of who matters to me most, I have to take care of myself too. So this year my biggest resolution is to actually make some resolutions for myself.

 

I decided to take the time to share what I want for myself this year, so I can be held accountable for my actions through my writing.

 

1. I want to be closer to God by being more devoted to my prayer life. I just started a prayer journal and I have already noticed a difference in how much I look forward to praying more. I absolutely love writing things out and seeing my prayers on paper helps motivate me to pray even more. I’m not writing every single prayer of mine down. I’m taking a few minutes a day to write out one long prayer and it helps me keep those things on my mind and it helps me say little prayers about those things throughout the day. I used to just keep a regular journal, but it wasn’t fulfilling my need for more time with God. I still update my regular journal every so often, but I have been putting my prayer time first and it has helped me so much more! I enjoy it already and I’m hoping to continue it in the new year. Through it, I hope to become closer to God and to become more aware of what it is I need to be doing for Him with my life and my spiritual gifts. I also need to pray more for my husband and children and our lives together.
   
   

2. I want to be closer to my husband by spending more quality time with him. Being married isn’t easy like some people believe it is. Like I believed it would be. It’s not all about being in love and being happy. There are times when we don’t agree on things and times when one of us is in a bad mood or sad. Add two babies to that and it gets a little hectic. We hardly have time for each other and when we do, we’re both so tired that it’s hard for us to even enjoy that time. Lately, we’ve been making more time for each other with small things and it has been so wonderful. I crave that time with him even more and it makes me so happy when I do get that time with him. He is such a wonderful person and he is the person that God made for me to spend my time with. I need to make MORE time for him and I hope to be able to find more time to spend with him.
   
   

3. I want to be a better mom and spend more time PLAYING and READING with my boys. I have this habit of cleaning. Not a bad habit, you’re probably thinking. I have been putting that habit before having play time with my boys, though. I used to think that if I get everything done around the house, there will be time later to spend with them. No. That’s not how it should be. It should be that there should be enough time to clean AFTER I play with my boys. The total opposite of what I’ve been doing. It makes me feel so bad that I don’t play and read with them as much as I keep up the house. I’ve been trying lately to make sure I play with them more often instead of washing the dishes or doing the laundry. I have all the time in the world to do house work. Yes, it’s nice to have a clean house… but I’d rather have happy playful kids that enjoy spending their time with me than a clean house that isn’t even going to love me back. I am thankful for my house and it is important to me to keep it clean, but my time with my boys is more important to me. They enjoy playing and they enjoy reading, so that’s what I’d rather spend my time doing with them instead of them just watching me and helping me do house work all the time.
   
   

4. I want to spend more time with our family. I have a very large family. I thought it was big before I got married. Well, after I got married, it became two times larger. I love my family so much and they have made me who I am today. I love my husband’s family so much too and they are who made my husband the way he is today, the man that I am in love with. I want to make sure that I spend more time with all of the people that I love and I want to make sure my children spend time with them too. Family is so important of all shapes and sizes. Since we are all getting older and starting our own lives away from each other, it gets harder for us to get together and spend some good quality time together. It makes it hard for us to all stay close and tight knit like we used to be. I’m very thankful for technology and the things we have to make sure we have communication with our loved ones, but it just isn’t the same as seeing them and hugging their necks. This year, I want to make sure that we get to spend more time with our family from both sides and from all angles.
   
   

5. I want to be more involved in the church. This past year I became the children’s minister at our church. I haven’t been able to be very involved and do as much work for the church, because of my distractions with having a newborn and being a mom of two. I haven’t been putting church on my top priority list and I feel like it should be up there. I want our church to grow and become more alive. The only way it will do that, though, is if I get more involved and actually do what I’m supposed to be doing as a children’s minister. I need to bring in more children into the church and help our children’s ministry grow.
   
   

6. I want to reach more people for Christ. I don’t get out much. I do most of my witnessing for Christ online. I’m hoping to reach more people this year with my writing and with my posts, for Jesus. It is our commission as Christians to share the gospel and bring others to Christ. I’d like to fulfil my commission and do what I’m supposed to do here on earth.
   
   
   

7. I want to spend more time with myself by investing time in my writing. I love to write! It has always been one of my passions that I will never grow out of. I’ve had all kinds of hobbies, but this hobby is my favorite. It helps me express myself and it helps me relieve stress. I may not be the best at it, but I love doing it and I want to spend more time doing it this year.
   
   

8. I want to spend more time improving my health physically. This one gets me every time. I set this resolution almost every year and I fail every year. I start exercising, eating better, drinking more water, and not eating as many sweets. By the end of January, I am back into my old habits. I’m not sure why it is so hard to stick to this one. I really want to be healthier physically. I really want to LOOK healthier physically. Why is it so hard for me to stay motivated to keep up this resolution? I think it’s because I am lazy. I need to be less lazy and maybe this resolution will stick. I was telling my husband the other day that the better I feel physically, the better I feel about getting things done around the house and the more energy I have to play with the kids. That is completely true and I have been trying to exercise more to make sure I feel better about those things. It all starts with self-motivation and I’m working on improving that.
   
   

9. I want to make more friends. I have a weird way of staying away from people. I’m a people person, but I just have a hard time making good friends with any of them. I’m good with making acquaintances and keeping up with people on Facebook. When it comes to being close to people, though, I keep it at my husband and close family. I used to have best friends in high school and I used to tell them everything, but I filled up that space in my heart with my husband and family after I got married. I haven’t made room in my heart for close friends. I know that my husband will always be my best friend, but I feel like it would be healthy for me to have some friends to spend time with. I don’t want drama though. I will shut that stuff down very quickly if it comes anywhere near me.
   
   

10. I don’t want to get pregnant. This one is funny, right? You think I’m joking? Nope! I’m completely serious. I actually talked to my husband about this one yesterday and he completely agrees with me. We are waiting on having another baby for a few years and this year, I don’t want to be pregnant. I want to fulfill all of the resolutions on this list and I know for a fact that another baby would not help any of these one bit. I know that if it was God’s plan for us to have a baby, then we wouldn’t go against it. BUT I definitely want to wait a few years and make sure I have time to fulfill these things and build a better life for our family. Of course, I’m wanting to have more kids and expand our family, but I feel like this year just isn’t the year to do that.
    
    Notice that every one of these resolutions involves time. I just don’t seem to have enough time to put anything into action. Or maybe I have plenty of time, but I just don’t know how to balance my time and attention very well. I don’t think I was born with that ability. If I was, it must have gone out the window when I got married. Who knows?
    
    I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth, but I want to make sure that I spend it well and these resolutions seem great! Let’s just hope I can stick to them.
    
    What are your resolutions? Or do you make resolutions? Why or why not?

Certainty in the Uncertain World: Part II

2. Our God is a God of  PURPOSE.   

Everyday we wake up and we automatically think, "So what am I going to do today?" Sometimes we make lists or write out reminders (I know being a mom, this helps out a LOT). Sometimes we just go with our daily routines without even thinking about what we're doing or what we're going to be doing later. Sometimes we have plans to do something special and we start getting ready as soon as we get out of bed, even if the plans are in the afternoon or at night (because sometimes that's how long it takes to get completely ready, especially if you have a toddler and an infant that likes to take poops as soon as you get him dressed).

There are times when we just sit and think about our life plans, as well. We ask ourselves, "So what am I going to do with the rest of my life?" Or the one I've most recently thought about, "Is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?" 

We make plans to succeed and to follow our dreams.

We're each in control of what we plan to do each and every day. We're in control of what we plan for the rest of our lives.

Remember those times when things didn't go as planned? Remember those times when you had every little detail planned out and things just went a TOTALLY different route? Or that time that you tried to succeed and FAILED MISERABLY?

All of that time you spent making sure everything would go as planned and one small thing happened that wasn't part of the plan and things just went that totally different route or they failed. 

It made you feel like you don't have a handle on things and things are just out of your control, didn't it?

Well, news flash!

You shouldn't have a handle on things and things ARE out of your complete control. 

You were never meant to have everything figured out. You were never meant to control everything. 

Proverbs 19:21 says, "Many are the plans in a man's heart but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

God lets us have a say in what we want out of our lives, but if we don't make our plan according to HIS purpose, all of our plans will not prevail. 

Prevail means:

  1. to be widespread or current; exist everywhere or generally.

2. to appear or occur as the more important or frequent feature or element; predominate.

In other words, our plans will not exist if we don't make our plans according to His purpose. If we don't pray or seek God's direction with our plans, we will have one problem after the other and our plans just won't happen and if they do happen without seeking God first, we will never be completely happy and we'll always be looking for more purpose.

Romans 8:28 is one of my favorite verses:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Every person is born with purpose. Only you can figure out what your purpose is in this life. Each individual has a calling in life to hep fill out the ultimate purpose: God's purpose. You will know that it is your calling by the sense you get from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will fill you with peace and confirmation when you do what you're meant to be doing. God will reveal His purpose for you, individually, through the Holy Spirit. 

One way to seek what God has planned for you is to look at the things you are good at doing. For example, I'm good at teaching and interacting with kids. So I became a children's director in our church. 

God needs you to use the skills that you have to help fill out His purpose. Why do you think He gave you those good skills?

 You have been called according to HIS purpose and should only seek out what it is you're supposed to be doing for Him. 

Even when things are hard and not going so great, we should still seek out His purpose. We need to remember that God is ultimately in control and that no matter how hard things seem at the moment, He will see us through them if we seek Him and His purpose for those hard times. "...in ALL THINGS God works for the good of those who love Him," (emphasis is mine)

Everyday has a purpose. Every hour. Every minute. Every second. They all have a purpose. You're breathing those days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Praying for God to reveal His purpose for everyday, every hour, every minute, and every second, will help your eyes and heart to open up to what God's purpose is for you.

God's purpose will be fulfilled. 

Phillippians 2:12-13 says, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."

There may be things that come up in our lives that may not be apart of God's purpose for our lives. A new job, schooling, relationship, marriage. 

How do we know when these things are or aren't apart of God's purpose in our lives? We pray. Be patient. Ask for God's peace. THEN decide. 

If He gives us peace in those things that are trying to be apart of our lives, then it is apart of God's purpose for us. We have to wait on the Lord and truly follow Him and His guidance FIRST... then act.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." 

Jeremiah 29:11

No matter what our plans are, God's plans are always better. We should TRUST God and what He has in store for us to fulfill His purpose. He loves us, just like I talked about in Part I. He knows what's best for us. 

I challenge you to let go of all of your plans that you have and to give them to God. Pray over those plans and ask God to reveal to you if those plans are how God wants them. Then patiently wait on God's direction. God will reveal to you what you need to do. It might not be today, tomorrow, or the next day. It might not even be within the next year. But He will reveal them to you over time.

I pray that you will seek God's purpose for your life before all of your plans. I pray that you will come closer to God by praying over everything, before doing it. 

Our God is a God of Purpose.

Certainty in an Uncertain World: Part I

Scrolling down my newsfeed on social media these past few days, I've seen so many different things. Ranging from a color design of a cup making people angry to the same color of that cup being shed all over the world because of terrorism. 

How are we supposed to react to these things? How are we, as Americans, supposed to react to people getting hurt over something so small like the color of a cup? How are we, as Americans, supposed to react to terrorist attacks getting closer and closer to our front doors? 

Well, those are tough questions. I wish I had the answers to them, but I don't. I wish I could write this long post about how I know EXACTLY what we need to do to be successful at not reacting the wrong way. Which would ultimately lead to us succeeding in handling these issues.

I don't know these answers. I don't know how we should react and I don't know how to handle these situations we are being forced to be apart of, because we are American. 

That's one of our biggest fears as humans: the unknown.

I've started trying something new. I've started trying to focus on what I DO know and it has brought me more comfort than ever before.

What I do know though is that:

 1. Our God is a God of LOVE.  

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, shall not perish, but will have everlasting life." 

I couldn't imagine how painful it had to have been for God to watch His son die on the cross. He could've stopped it. He could've kept it from happening by wiping us people off of the face of the earth, but God loved us(and still loves us) and He knew that in order to truly save all of us sinning filthy humans, He had to send His only son to die for us. 

I have two sons. If I had to save the world by sacrificing either one of them, I wouldn't. I don't think I could. I don't love the world enough to do that. 

Especially with all of this evil that's starting to come out in the open. This evil hasn't just sprouted up out of nowhere. It has always been here. God knew back then how much evil was in the world, yet he stilled loved it. He loved it so much that He wanted to save it from ultimate evil: HELL.

 He loves you, He loves me. He loves the people of Starbucks. He loves those syrian refugees coming into our country... 

He loves the people of ISIS...

How can God love such evil people? How can God love the people that hate other people and still be a God of love.

 God's love is unconditional. 

Unlimited. 

Absolute.

 No matter how much we sin against Him, do bad towards others, and hate... God will always love us.

He loves us, but that doesn't mean he loves and approves of what we do. There's a difference. He gives us freewill as a privilege, because of how much He loves us. 

If we let His unconditional love be a guide for how we live and love, then imagine how much hate would disappear. Imagine how much different our world would be if we were to love one another more than talk about, hate on, judge, and discriminate one another.

Something I wish I knew before I got married: Part III

3. Our marriage needs armor.

Do you ever feel like giving up on your marriage? 

I'll have to honestly admit, there have been times when thoughts of giving up on my marriage have crossed my mind. Even if it was just for a second. 

Those were the times when I was at my lowest with my husband and it felt like we were on two totally different planets. Either he did something that I didn't agree with for the hundredth time or he said something to me that hurt me and made me mad or upset. 

It was probably one of those selfish times when I was basing how I felt on how he was acting and being.

The devil knows how to come into your marriage, especially when you and your spouse are doing good and think you have things all figured out. The devil knows how to sneak up and pounce at the most happiest moments of your lives. 

He knows how to take the most innocent actions or words and twist them in your head to the worst possible scenarios, just so you will hurt and possibly make someone else hurt along with you. 

It's only human of us to want someone else to hurt as much as we do when we're hurting. We want someone to understand that we're hurting and we want them to feel it too, so they'll sympathize with us or feel sorry for us. The devil knows that. He knows how human we are. 

Why does the devil want so much to do with our marriages and godly relationships? 

Because the devil wants nothing more than to get rid of the relationships that he knows can bring you, your spouse, your children, and all of those who people that look up to you, closer to God. The devil wants to keep you from having that close relationship with God, by taking away your Christ-centered relationships. 

The world makes it so easy to end relationships nowadays. You can end them over a text, a phone call, or an email. You can even hire someone else to do it for you, to save you the trouble. The devil knows about all of those things. He wants you to think about those things and resort to thinking about how easy it would be to just end things and be done with it. 

So in other words, the more you put God in the center of your relationships, the more you get closer to those people who help you get closer to God, the harder the devil will try to make it harder on you to keep those relationships.

How in the world are we supposed to keep those relationships, if the devil is fighting so hard against them? How are we to resist the devil, when he comes to us so beautifully wrapped?

Our God has already defeated the devil and He has given us the authority to defeat him as well.

Ephesians 6:10-18 says this, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorites, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, witht he belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."

We have to be equipped with the armor that God has provided for us to resist all of the devil's evil shenanigans.

We should be quick to pray for the armor of God as soon as it becomes evident that things are going in the wrong direction with our relationship with our spouse. That means as soon as you begin to feel something negative, you should pause. Pray. Breathe. Make sure you have your armor on. Then act. THEN speak. 

By resisting the devil, we resist those moments of wanting to give up. Those moments of doubting that we can keep going.

I've just recently had something happen with my husband that took all I had to hold it together. I was falling apart and didn't know what I should do, how I should act, or how I should handle the situation. I stopped, prayed to God and asked for His armor, and then what I needed to do and say became clear to me. Being quick to pray not only helped me handle that situation, but it helped some other things unfold that needed to get aired out. It brought me closer to God and my husband and I became closer together.

Things aren't necessarily easier now, but they were never meant to be easy. They were meant to be God's way and with God's way comes the devil's schemes to try to lead you away from God's way.

Don't give up on your marriage, because it's the easy thing to do. It's not over yet.

Don't only put the armor of God over yourself... try putting the armor of God over your marriage and sock it to the devil! Then see how things work out.
Our marriages are so precious to God, but they are also precious to the devil. God wants them to flourish, the devil wants them to fail, to make us bitter people, and to make us LONELY people. If we put the Armor of God on our marriage, then we can conquer the devil, not only as individuals, but as a married couple.

I'm so thankful God has given me a teammate to share my armor with, make sure you share your armor with your teammate too!

Something I wish I knew before I got married... Part II

 

2. My Husband is not my complete happiness and he is NOT my savior.

 

When I was younger, I believed that finding the guy for me meant finding someone that was always going to make me completely happy. ALL THE TIME. Someone that was never going to hurt me, make me upset, mad, or make me want to karate chop him in the face…

 

 

I started having boyfriends when I was around maybe thirteen? Not serious boyfriends, obviously, but I thought it was pretty serious then. I dated some really weird guys (no offense to those that I’ve dated that are possibly reading this). I was pretty weird myself, as some of you may remember. I’m still weird, what am I talking about?

Anyway, I always ended things whenever I was hurt or whenever I got mad. I always ended things when things got tough or not easy to handle or when I realized I was the only one making an effort at keeping things together. I made sure that I wasn’t going to be in a relationship that took too much out of me. I expected the special someone I was going to be with, to always make me happy. So everyone that didn’t live up to that, I didn’t want to be with.

 

 

 

 

When I first started talking to my husband, I thought that he was the most sweet, thoughtful, kindest, caring person ever. I was going through a rough time in my “love life” when I first got that message from my husband, a stranger to me (I knew his family, so no stranger danger) , over Facebook: “Hey, how are you doing? J”

 

I had just broken up with my ex boyfriend. I found out that my ex still had feelings for his ex and that he had “hung out” with her the weekend I was away visiting family, without telling me. He also thought that I didn’t care for him as much as he cared for me. He thought that there was something wrong with me and that I just wasn’t being what he wanted me to be. He wanted to “take a break” and “take some space” for himself. I agreed to wait for him, at first. But then I realized that if he really cared about me, he wouldn’t expect me to be any other way than what I was being. Plus, I’ve done that “waiting game” before and it turned into me waiting for something that wasn’t ever going to be what the other person wanted it to be. So I just told him to forget it, we were over, and I was done chasing after and waiting for someone that thought that I didn’t care about him.

 

 I was giving up on looking for someone to be with. I didn’t want any kind of relationship as more than friends with a guy at that time. I was trying to find happiness through relationships and didn’t believe I would ever find it.

 

I wasn’t looking anymore, but God helped me find what I wasn't looking for. He helped me find the one that was there to help me pick myself up, when I was at one of my lowest points. I will always remember the phrase my husband, a stranger at the time, told me, “Hold on to the things that are automatic in your life, let go of everything else.” He reminded me of what I needed to do to be happy again.

 

 He became one of those things that were “automatic” in my life, along with God and my family.

 

When he and I began to date, I learned more than I had ever known about relationships. Our relationship was a long distance relationship. He lived about four hours away from me. Yet we still made each other happy. We were even happier when we were able to see each other over Skype or talking to each other over the phone. We didn’t seriously fight at all.

There was that one week, though, that we do not speak of. The week when we tried to see what it would be like without talking to each other, to see if our relationship was real. We decided not to do that ever again. We doubted our relationship, tried something to fix it, and it worked.

 

He made me happy and I made him happy, miles apart.

 

We still had moments when we would doubt our relationship later on, because things started getting tougher. He went into the military and went through basic training, I was graduating high school. We made it through those moments though, together. Happily. We talked about getting married and how it would make us both happy to never be away from each other again.

 

After he and I got married, we began our adventure. We tackled it head on. I was expecting him to make me happy, no matter what and he was expecting me to make him happy, no matter what. We’ve already proved that we could do that. As long as we had each other.

We moved far away from family and found out that I was pregnant a month or two later. We were definitely on a “happy high”.

 

We started learning things about each other and we couldn’t get enough.

 

Then things started settling down.

 

There were times when my husband would come home from work wanting to be alone or he’d want to go over to a friend’s house, instead of wanting to spend time together with me. He’d have bad moods and wouldn’t want to do anything that I wanted to do. Of course, as a newlywed, I got upset and hurt at those things. I’d have bad moods too and he’d get upset.

I used to think, “He must not be happy with me. He must not want to do anything with me anymore. He’s tired of me already.” I used to think that it wasn’t fair that he was being that way and I had to be the strong one and deal with it. I was the only one allowed to be moody!

 

 I used to always try to be the “perfect wife”. I used to always think of different ways to try to make him happy even if it meant not being myself. I would thrive under his compliments and tender love, but I would cower and close up when he wouldn’t notice how hard I was trying or when he’d tell me that it didn’t seem like I was trying at all.  

 

I based my mood and happiness off of his mood and happiness. You’re probably thinking that that’s what I’m supposed to do as a spouse, right? Well, you’re wrong.

I’m not saying that I shouldn’t sympathize or try to put myself in his shoes when he’s hurting, in a bad mood, or not happy. Or that I shouldn’t hurt when he’s hurting. There’s a difference.

 

I’m saying that BASING my mood and happiness on the words and actions of an imperfect person will ALWAYS lead to disappointment. Expecting him to be a certain way, feel a certain way, or act a certain way because of how I feel like he SHOULD, ALWAYS leads to disappointment. Expecting so much out of him ALWAYS leads to disappointment. Disappointment always leads to a deeper pain and sometimes even changes the way you look at your significant other and even yourself.

 

When I realized this, I felt so foolish and ashamed. Here I was basing my human feelings on another human’s feelings, wondering why I was getting hurt and feeling inadequate.

 

 

Then I came across this quote:

 

“When you aren’t depending on your husband to fill you up, then he can make mistakes and you are still okay. He can say the wrong thing and you can forgive him quickly. He can struggle and question his direction and you don’t fall into despair. He can be your partner and your friend, because he does not have to be your savior.” – Lysa TerKeurst

 

There it was! I was ashamed and foolish, because I was looking for my husband to be my savior and I was trying my hardest to be his.

 

The Bible says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” John 15:9-11

 

 

Jesus is my savior and in him, my joy should already be full. No matter what my husband does or how he acts, I should always look to Jesus first and remember that my joy is already full. Then I should react in love towards my husband, even if my husband does something to hurt my feelings or if things aren’t going my way.

 

Yes, my husband should be apart of my happiness and will always be a BIG part of that happiness, but he will never be my complete happiness. Yes, my husband should be apart of my strength when I'm too weak to do some things, but my Lord is my ultimate strength. Yes, my husband loves me and I love him, but Jesus' love is unconditional and there will never be a love like His. My husband was never meant to be my savior, but Jesus IS my Savior.

 

As painful as it can be to have those things we’re insecure about, those arguments that seem to last forever, and unmet expectations, all of those things in marriage can grow us closer to Jesus, our  one true savior, if we do the right thing and let them. The one we should look towards to make our happiness complete, is our savior, Jesus.

 

I challenge you today to take all of those insecurities, painful arguments, and unmet expectations to Jesus and lay them at his feet. Then see how you feel. Imagine what could happen to our marriages if we would all do this.

 

 I struggle with doing this sometimes and I have to keep reminding myself to do it. Every time I take all of those things to the one true savior, my marriage gets better, I get closer to my husband and most of all, I get closer to God. But sometimes I forget to LEAVE those things at Jesus' feet and walk away from them. So I do still struggle with these things. I am not perfect, my husband is not perfect, but our savior is. And he loves us perfectly.

 

I thank the Lord for being my Savior and loving me despite my struggles with these things. You should too.