Happiness vs. Holiness

Tags

forgiveness, Happiness, Holiness

[From Noel]

Some more thoughts about marriage and happiness (kind of a part three post continuing the thoughts of part 1 and part 2):

In her book, Bound and Determined: Christian Men and Women in Partnership, Jeanene Reese observed that happiness is a bit of a fixation for Western culture. Many believe that marriage is for making people happy, and its not just marriages.
Most parents too, at least in North America, if they were asked what it was they wished for their kids, they would say, “I just want my kids to be happy.” (Aside: If this topic is more interesting to you go here and read Dr. Robin Berman’s article on “Unhappiness: The Key to raising Happy Children”)

Now Jeanene doesn’t want her kids to be unhappy (neither you nor I do either) but she says that in marriage, happiness is the wrong target to aim for, both for your kids and for your marriage. Happiness is too dependent on our emotional state, and our circumstances, both things we cannot change nor control.

Pinterest is full of little projects that celebrate the “happiness of marriage.” But what if you follow the recipe shown here and find that it isn’t all that happy? What if marriage is instead frustrating and difficult, even when you follow the recipe?

Marriage was created by God and one of the things marriage does is help us practice loving someone the way God loves people. Unlike people, God loves the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. God never tires of loving. On the other hand, remember the way you loved your spouse back at the beginning of your marriage. Everything they did just tickled and delighted you. The cute way they sneezed, the way they folded towels, the way they left the seat up / or down, the way they left the dirty dishes on the counter even though the dish washer is empty and ready to be loaded again. How about now? Not so much.

The truth is that humans aren’t natural lovers. We learn to love from the example that God gives us and marriage is a place where we can safely learn to get better at it. Jeanene reminds us,

Do [you] always feel the love? No. Love is not an emotional response but an ongoing choice. There are times, however when I don’t even have the will to choose to love. Jack (her husband) and I, like all married couples, have experienced our share of hard times. I used to think that if things got difficult enough that I couldn’t love with my love, I could always love with God’s. Then I discovered that I cannot love with God’s love unless I am fully surrendered to it (p. 141).

What Jeanene means here is that I need God to be at the center of my marriage and I need to love in the same way I am loved by God. When I can accept that unconditional love that God has for me, I can then be a conduit of God’s love to others. If I don’t accept that God loves me and is working a miracle in my heart, then I only have a limited supply of love to give. When that runs out, I will naturally switch gears and begin my games of manipulation and distrust (something humans are naturally good at).

There are times when I am not feeling it and on those days love is a choice. Marriage is tough and sometimes I am so fed up and frustrated that I don’t want to choose love anymore. Then I need to trust God to fill my choices with his love. (There is, of course, no place for abusive or destructive behaviours in a marriage relationship. Abuse is not something that is tolerated or worked through. This deserves its own blog article sometime, but I feel compelled at this point to mention that I am not suggesting that God will help you love an actively abusive spouse until they stop abusing you some time down the road. Abusive behaviours are unacceptable and need to be addressed as the sin that they are. You will need to seek the help of a counselor and in some cases you may need to involve the police.)

Marriage was invented by God as a way to train our hearts to love like God loves. Theologians call this “progressive sanctification.” It is the gradual process where you learn to forgive and learn to love in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before. You are being transformed into the image of God. You are becoming holy, in one of the ways that God is holy. It is a difficult, and yet beautiful process, and it starts with submitting to the love that God has for you, and then embodying it for someone else.

Marriage was designed by God to produce holiness, not happiness.

ncw

You Can’t Make Yourself Happy

Tags

covenant, Joy, Joy in Marriage, marriage

[From Noel] It turns out I have already blogged on this topic: Joy vs Happiness in marriage but I’m not going to let that stop me.  Just think of this as Chapter 2 of an emerging written work :).

Marriage in western culture is really taking a beating out there.  Today, like all adult relationships these days, marriages are becoming more and more provisional: they are simply assumed to be temporary – “we’re just going to make the best of it while we can.”

Many twenty-somethings have only known serial relationships without any formal act of commitment and research shows that, outside of marriage, adult romantic relationships like this (read: living together) only last about two years on average.

When a relationship of mine is provisional, I am constantly checking to see  if it is still alive.  “Are we still an item?” And to answer this question I look inward at myself.  “Am I still in love?”  “Is he/she still sexually compatible with me and my needs?” “Do I still have feelings for him/her?” And this is where a big problem lies.  Joy (lasting happiness) is not something we find through self gratification.  It will not be found through facing inward but instead joy is found through attending to the other in a self sacrificing, sort of way. It reminds me of a story I read recently: A desperate man wrote Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn seeking advice.  He wrote,

I need the Rabbi’s help. I am deeply depressed.  I pray and find no comfort.  I perform the commands but feel nothing. I find it hard to carry on…

The Rabbi sent a compelling reply without writing a single word.  He returned the man’s note and circled the first word of every sentence.  At the bottom of the note he wrote one sentence.  “The door to happiness opens outward, not inward.” Happiness is not something that we will find through looking after our own needs. but instead, it is found through looking after the needs of someone else.

There is a word in the Old Testament that makes this point beautifully.  It is the Hebrew word simchah. It is translated as “joy,” “gladness,” “mirth,” but translators  have trouble because it has no exact equivalent in English.  Johnathan Sacks writes in his book The Great Partnership, “in English … all our emotion words refer to states of mind we can experience alone. Simchah is something we cannot experience alone.  Simchah is joy shared.”  (p. 203-4)

You know that Internet video of the guy getting hit in the head with a soccer ball.  It’s funny, but sharing it with someone is almost as much fun as seeing it again for the first time. It’s a joy shared.  That’s what married joy is like. 🙂 To truly experience it you need to want it for the other person.  If you are trying to get it for yourself you will be disappointed but when you want it for your spouse, in time, you can find it too.

So being married is like getting hit in the face with a …. no, getting married is hitting someone in the face with a soccer ball…  Or is it being married is watching someone getting hit with a soccer ball…?

Where’s Julie?   I think I need her to finish this blog post off.

ncw

Faith or Fine

Tags

Beth Moore, Faith, God, God's Provision, Living Proof, marriage, Prayer

[From Julie] A couple of months ago I was able to take in a Beth Moore Simulcast event at a local church.  I had this same opportunity about a year ago and our women’s group has traveled to a few live events as well.  Beth is one of my favorite speakers and teachers and she always inspires.  These events never fail to deliver a word from God straight to my heart.  He is very tangible when I’m in a room singing praises with so many other women.  While I was on my way to this particular event I was wondering what word God had in mind for me today.  I could only stay for the morning session so I was expecting God to deliver pretty early in the conference.  Oh boy!  Did he ever!  Some of what I heard felt like it was tailor-made just for me and some of it made me think about my marriage and the marriages I see around me.  I was disappointed that I couldn’t stay for the whole event but I knew in that short time I got what I came for.  A word from God.

Where is Jesus in your life?  Where is he in your marriage?  I’ve said before that it is only by the grace of God that Noel and I have a strong marriage.  When we got married I honestly didn’t know what to expect except that I wanted to be happy.  It wasn’t until years later that I wanted something more than ‘happy’ or ‘fine’.  Fine is what I can do on my own.  God didn’t call any of us to fine.  He called us to faith.  I don’t want a humanly explainable marriage.  I want a life and a marriage with the supernatural provision of God.  I love how Beth puts it; “my needs are my invitation to live like this.”  This is great news!  When we struggle in our marriages we are poised to see the power of God.  When we are laid low by a seemingly insurmountable problem God is closer than we think.  Sometimes it takes problems on this scale to get our attention long enough to see the power of God.  When we can’t solve it ourselves and yet it gets solved and you can see the good coming out of the situation, it leaves us in the position of believing God had a hand in it.  That makes me think of my needs in a whole new light.

Think of what you need urgently.  What would it be that would change the course of your marriage?  Do you need better communication, more stability, deeper trust, recovery from infidelity or secret addiction, more understanding, a better sex life?  The list could be endless.  Pray about these things and wait for God to reveal what He wants you to learn.  He will come through for you.  It’s hard to describe how this works in an everyday situation but I know that I’ve felt this kind of direction from God and it is a better way to live than just trying to figure things out myself then hoping everything turns out okay.  I love that I can look back on 19 years of marriage and see God’s fingerprints everywhere.  Things could have gone so badly if we had continually tried to do this ourselves.  We’ve learned the hard way that choosing to live in ‘faith’ is better and that has led to a marriage and a life that is way better than ‘fine’ could ever hope to be.  Praise God.

Real Marriage Week 9: Selfish Lovers and Servant Lovers

Tags

Driscoll, Mark Driscoll, marriage, Marriage blog, Real Marriage, Servant Lover

[From Noel]
I think that this chapter of Real Marriage has more potential to improve your marriage than any other chapter. On our first time through the Peasant Princess sermon series at Mars Hill, Julie and I found the idea of being a servant lover to be a profound shift in the way we think about sex and marriage. We have written about this idea many times before and it continues to alter the way we treat each other.

The biggest obstacle to serving our spouse is pride. Driscoll says, “Without humility we simply cannot serve in an ongoing and loving manner.  The Bible says that pride is an enemy and that humility is a friend that allows us to live for God’s glory and thereby love and serve others rather than use and abuse them.” (p. 158)  Pride is the default mode of the human heart and marriage is intensive training in humility and service to another.

Julie has said, “You are your spouse’s only lover… You are the only one to fill that role. Do it well.  Become more thoughtful, caring, giving, and adventurous. Look for ways to serve each other in the bedroom. Discuss what you want to try and be open-minded.” (from our Week 6 discussion)

A covenant relationship is based on the idea of mutual submission.  In other words, a husband loves and leads his wife and his family well by putting their needs first.  When it comes to giving up rights and privileges, he goes first.  He sacrifices first, he apologizes first, he serves first. That’s what it means to be a Christ-like leader and servant of your family.  On the flip side, a wife loves her husband and her family best by putting their needs first. When both a husband and a wife serve each other, putting the needs of the other ahead of their own there is some sweeeeet fellowship (if you know what I mean :))

Where this breaks down is when you have one person serving and the other person insisting on being served. Two givers create a balanced and healthy marriage.  There is give and take.  Mistakes are made and forgiveness is granted and received. When you have a giver and taker however, that is not healthy.  That is abuse.

Statscan says that 43 percent of marriages are expected to end in divorce before the couple celebrates their 50th Anniversary.  While there are biblical grounds for divorce, selfishness, plain and simple, is the primary cause of marriage failure. The painful truth is that most marriages that end, end because one person or both refuses to address selfishness in the relationship.

Selfishness begins in childhood.  Parents who raise a child to think that they are the center of the universe are raising someone who will have great difficulty in marriage.  A child who is appeased and coddled their whole life will enter marriage thinking that their spouse will simply pick up where their parents left off. The honeymoon will be startlingly brief and some hard, difficult lessons will begin.  Those of us who are parents owe it to our kids to help prepare them for adulthood and marriage by training them to serve their families. Serving your siblings and parents is good preparation for adulthood and if they get married later in life, they will find service natural and your new son or daughter-in-law will thank you.

Driscoll quotes Mark 10:43 where Jesus says, “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.” Jesus came to be a servant! If he didn’t feel entitled, you and I probably shouldn’t either.  Jesus is our Lord and Master but He is also our best example in how to love our spouse.

Click here for more from Real Marriage.

NCW

A Marriage Blessing

Tags

marriage, Preparing for marriage, Wedding, Wedding Sermon

[From Noel] This is a wedding blessing I shared last month for a young couple in our church. May it be a blessing to your marriage as well.

This week I have spent some time at a funeral and now I get to spend time at a wedding. A bride and groom spend a lot of time planning the first day of their marriage but how come no one considers how you spend the last day of your marriage? As surely as you have a first day of your marriage you will have a last day and your last day is more important than your first day – one of you is not getting out of this alive! It’s not good enough just to start well. Anyone can do that! The goal is to finish well. To be faithful to God and to your marriage right to the end.

Today is fun, full of hope and anticipation. The last day is not as much fun. Try as you might, you can’t plan the last day of your marriage. You will find it impossible to schedule, no itinerary will be sufficient. So how do you prepare for the last day of your marriage? It all depends on how you look at the struggles that come your way. Here are three ways to prepare for the last day of your marriage.

1.  Choose to Love

Today you are declaring your choice. You are saying, “I choose this person.” Tomorrow, make the same choice. Stuart MacLean of the CBC’s Vinyl Café, shares a similar idea when telling the story of how he quit smoking. He remarks that when he decided to quit, he didn’t make the decision once, for all. Instead, he decided to quit every morning for about 6 years. Each day he would wake up and forget that he had quit smoking. He would look at his bedside table for a cigarette and a lighter before he remembered that he no longer had any cigarettes. He would have to quit all over again.

Marriage is a lot like quitting smoking. It is a decision that you make every day, so do it! Choose to love every day.

2. Pray with and Pray for each other

Prayer is a powerful and formative thing. It changes the circumstances of your life and changes the way you see your struggles. Very few couples I know are good at this so keep at it. Prayer doesn’t come easily (at least that has been my experience) it takes hard work.

3. Make sure you are asking the right questions.
God is doing something at each stage of your marriage. In preacher language, your marriage is a sacrament. This means it is a means of dispensing grace. God is doing something through you and through your marriage. He is using your marriage to change who you are so it is vital to make sure that you are asking the right questions. The question is not, “why is this happening to me?” The right question to be asking is, “What are we learning right now? So when you’re twenty-something, working constantly, living like 2 ships passing in the night the question is not , “why doesn’t she make supper anymore?” Or, “Why doesn’t he pick up his laundry?” The question is, “What are we learning here? What’s God calling me to? What’s He teaching me?”

God brings you to each struggle and through each season to your marriage in order to bless you. Do you really think God is all powerful? Do you really think he wants what’s best for you? Then you need to look at every new challenge as an opportunity to receive a blessing from God. When you’re changing diapers constantly and sleep is scarce you can complain about it on Facebook or you can receive it as a gift unlooked for. A blessing in disguise.

Choose to love every day, Pray with and for each other. See every challenge as a holy appointment. An opportunity to receive a blessing from God.

nw

Wedding Refresher Course

Tags

committment, covenant, God's Love, love, Marriage Refresher, Wedding, Wedding Day

[From Noel] Long ago, I used to be a lifeguard.  I took courses and was trained in lifesaving techniques, CPR, aquatic rescue and so on.  I even worked at a pool and had to use these skills a couple of times, but like most skills you stop using, I have forgotten most of what I learned about lifeguarding.  While I was a lifeguard I had to do refresher courses from time to time and one of the things they would do at a course like that is go back to the beginning and remind you why you learned the skill in the first place.  You learn CPR in order to be prepared to save a life.  You learn how to use a backboard in order to prevent further spinal damage. In keeping skills fresh it is sometimes important to go back to the beginning and remember why you learned this in the first place.

This summer, churches everywhere are offering marriage refresher courses (almost every weekend). They’re called weddings. They are usually free and the public is welcome to attend.  If you are part of a church, and someone at your church is getting married you are usually welcome to attend. It is a great opportunity to be reminded of how you got into the marriage you’re in.

Marriages have one unfortunate result in that they become very familiar.  It is sometimes difficult to remember what your life was like before marriage.  Maybe you didn’t have a life before you were married! Either way, we take our spouses, , our families, and our marriages for granted.  That giddy, exciting day many years ago when we first tied the knot can sometimes feel like a distant memory.

Seeing a wedding is a good refresher for us.  We are reminded that this was supposed to be fun!  It started out as a very new, exciting experience.  It’s also good to remind ourselves that marriages ought to be taken seriously.  It takes a lot of hard work to make them healthy and enjoyable.

A good wedding is also a worship service. At a wedding we recognize that God is the source of every good gift, and that He withholds no good thing from us.  In preacher language, marriage is a sacrament.  In English, that means that marriage is a means for dispensing grace to one another. In marriage two people accept the reality that we will fail and will sin against each other and at the same time promise to forgive and share the forgiveness we receive from God with another sinner.

When you go to a wedding you are witness to something special.  You watch someone make a promise that will in turn have a role in making them who they will be for the rest of their lives. So make plans with what is left of your summer to catch a wedding.  Even if you have to, wander into a park or a marina over the next couple of weeks and make yourself part of one.  Just dress nicely, bring a card and chances are you will be able to stay for some food.  Where I come from that counts as a date!

NW

Does Marriage Make You Happy?

Tags

Happiness, Joy in Marriage, marriage, Sara Groves

[From Noel]   When counseling married couples. Rather, I should say, when providing spiritual guidance… My legal department requires that I not use the word counseling.  (Kidding!  I don’t actually have legal counsel!  It’s the church’s insurance company that won’t let me use the word counseling).

Anyway, when talking with married couples I am fond of saying that marriage does not make you happy.  What I mean is that marriage is hard work.  Central and core to whole enterprise is seeking the good of your spouse and not selfishly seeking your own good.  This advice has never set well with Julie (and I’m not fully convinced of it either).

It turns out I am wrong!  How dare they! University of Michigan published a report in May 2012 that says that marriage does make people happier!  Here is what chief researcher Stevie C.Y. Yap said:

Our data suggests that married people are happier than they would have been if they didn’t get married. Marriage protects against age-related declines in happiness.

What he means is that, typically, the general population gets less happy (no matter how you define happiness) as they get older.  Yap says that married people’s happiness peaks during that first year of marriage and then levels off, tending toward the couple’s previous happiness level.  By the ten year mark, their happiness level is the same as it was when the first got married.  The difference is that single people, on average, are less happy ten years later.

So, maybe what I mean is this: Maybe you learn a new kind of happy by being married. In the blur of 19 years of marriage, somewhere along the way, God has given me a heart transplant and things that I never would have dreamed would make me happy now do. I love clearing the counter of dirty dishes when Julie’s working. I love fixing the window on the van so Julie doesn’t have to worry about it. I love stripping off vinyl flooring and re-setting a toilet seal because Julie picked the perfect floor remnant for the main floor bathroom. There’s a joy in serving the one whom your heart belongs to and it takes a long time to get to the place where you feel it. By my count (and everyone’s spouse is different) give it …  ten years.

In the movie SweetLand there’s a scene where a Grandson questions his Grandma about life. Now you’d have to see the movie to know that Grandma has struggled through a difficult marriage, and a tough life. Her grandson asks her, “Grandma, have you been happy?” After a pause, Grandma turns and says, “Son, there are different kinds of happy.” That line stuck with Sara Groves and she wrote a song about it:

Different Kinds of Happy by Sara Groves. From Fireflies and Songs

go on and ask me anything
what do you need to know
I’m not holding on to anything
I’m not willing to let go of
to be free, to be free

I’ve got to ask you something
but please don’t be afraid
there’s a promise here thats heavier
than your answer might weigh
baby it’s me, it’s me

it’s a sweet, sweet thing
standing here with you and nothing to hide
light shining down to our very insides
sharing our secrets, bearing our souls,
helping each other come clean

secrets and cyphers
there’s no good way to hide
there’s redemption in confession
and freedom in the light
I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid

better than our promises
is the day we got to keep them
I wish those two could see us now
they never would believe how
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy
there are different kinds of happy
different kinds of happy

it’s a sweet, sweet thing
standing here with you and nothing to hide
light shining down to our very inside
loving each other

it’s a sweet, sweet thing
standing here with you and nothing to hide
light shining down to our very insides
loving each other
knowing each other
helping each other
sharing our secrets, bearing our souls,
helping each other come clean

Mess or Message

Tags

Christ centred marriage, healing, marriage, Marriage blog, Surviving Sexual Assault

[From Julie] Last fall our women’s study group did a Priscilla Shirer study on Jonah.  It was called Navigating a Life Interrupted.  It was a good study.  In one of the lessons Priscilla said something that has stuck with me ever since.  She said that sometimes our ‘biggest mess is our greatest message’.  I’ve thought about that a lot in the last few months.  What a positive message just in that one statement.  It’s a beauty from ashes type of statement.  We get a chance to not only learn from our mistakes but also to use them to help others.  What are you going to do with the lessons learned from poor decisions?  You may not repeat them but can you also help others not to make the same mistakes?  I’m not suggesting that we all air our dirty laundry to any and everyone but I think in the right forum it can be beneficial to others and healing for us.  Maybe that’s what God wants us to do.  Not just be forgiven for our sins but to use the lessons learned to bring glory to God.  Paul certainly felt this way.  He called himself the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15) and he never forgot what Jesus saved him from.

You may wonder what any of this has to do with marriage but I think we have seen an example of this already here on the blog.  I appreciate Sandy’s reflections on her marriage to Rick.  She gave us a unique opportunity to see into the struggles they faced and the issues they were up against.  Their issues were big and had the capacity to destroy their marriage.  So why didn’t

Book Review: The Love and Respect Experience

Tags

Book Review, devotional, Emerson Eggerichs, Love and Respect, marriage, The Love and Respect Experience

[From Julie]  The Love and Respect Experience by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is a devotional book for couples.  It is specifically designed to be appealing to husbands with many of the illustrations and stories geared toward men.  Along with this book Dr. Eggerichs has written several others including Love and Respect which compliments the Love and Respect conferences that he and his wife Sarah host around the US.

This book has 52 short devotions that can be used in a variety of ways.  They can be studied in any order and couples may read them together or separately then come together to discuss what God has been telling them.  Every devotion begins with a scripture that the chapter focuses on and there is also an insight which sums up the truth of the chapter.  At the end of the devotion there are prayer suggestions and ideas and Action items that spouses can apply from that particular chapter.  In addition there are discussion questions in an appendix at the end of the book if couples would like additional study.  The only ground rule is that each spouse shares what God is saying to their own heart not what they think God needs to say to their mate.

The key premise of Love and Respect is that women, in general, seek love and men seek respect in their interactions with each other.  If a wife respects her husband, then he will in turn show her true love. If the husband loves his wife, she will show him true respect (pg xv).  The book deals with the important principles of the Love and Respect curriculum in an easy to understand way.  It is meant to be a highly practical guide that gives couples a vocabulary booster for talking to each other. As couples work through this book together they will learning how to speak the primary language of their spouse better.

Couples slowly learn how to avoid what Dr. Eggerichs calls the Crazy Cycle.  Which is, “without love she reacts without respect.  Without respect he reacts without love.” (pg 273)  Dr. Eggerichs answers the Crazy Cycle with Eph 5:33.  This scripture gives rise to the Energizing Cycle which is, “his love motivates her respect which motivates his love.” (pg 276)  If couples work at slowing the Crazy Cycle and practicing the Energizing Cycle they will slowly reach the ultimate goal of the Rewarding Cycle which is, “his love blesses regardless of her respect and her respect blesses regardless of his love.” (pg 278) This is how couples follow God’s will for their marriage.

The book is filled with other practical suggestions which are all Biblically based and deal with issues that couples face on a daily basis.  Early in the book Dr. Eggerichs introduces the concept of goodwill.  To always assume your partner has basic goodwill toward you even when it doesn’t feel like it.  Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume your partner does not have any ill will toward you.  This is an important principle of Love and Respect and has the ability to help you think of your spouse in a new and positive light.  In the last chapter Dr. Eggerichs reveals his primary purpose for the book: to guide couples to love and respect each other unconditionally out of a deep consciousness of Jesus.  Dr. Eggerichs’ desire is for couples to realize that your marriage is about trusting God’s instructions in Eph 5:33 and not primarily about pleasing each other (pg 210).  I think this book does a wonderful job at focusing couples on what is important along with some basic training in learning about each other.  It’s definitely worth the read.

God’s Kind of Perfect

Tags

God's Plan, life, life change, marriage, perfect, providence

[From Julie]Nothing is perfect nor is anyone able to be perfect, however I think perfection is something we make it.  When Noel and I got married I thought we were perfect together and we would build a life that was perfect because we had the only thing that really matters, we loved each other.  I married a teacher and I was a nurse.  Perfect.  We’ll both get jobs and we’ll have lots of money to do all those wonderful things I was planning in my head.  My perfect family was two boys and a girl, preferably in that order.  We would have a beautiful home and beautiful kids and things would be, well perfect.

Unfortunately, life happens and the job thing didn’t really work out as imagined for me (it took me seven years to get a nursing job). Never-the-less we still had just enough to get by.  I worked a job that I really didn’t like and didn’t pay well.  Noel was teaching, which was a miracle in and of itself, and we were finding out how difficult his choice of vocation really was.   Things were tight but we moved on.  We had a rough start to our parenting goals with a late miscarriage and the difficulty of dealing with that.  We didn’t vacation and we got by on one car.  Still I thought things were pretty great.

The life we have now bears no resemblance to what I thought would be perfect when I was in my early 20’s.  I’m married to a pastor not a teacher, and we have four wonderful boys (two of which happen to be twins) and no girls.  It’s perfect.  It’s God’s kind of perfect.  It’s what he has planned for us.

As my life changed so did my view of perfect.  I would not have chosen to change my plan however I see the beauty of this plan.  I never would have chosen the road of miscarriage, of losing my mom at such a young age, or even having twins.