Welcome back to Marriage Monday! We are SO glad you made it : ) Last marriage Monday (found here), we introduced to you a book we are currently reading called “How We Love” by Milan + Kay Yerkovich. This week we are going to be talking about the opening chapter + how it pertained to specifically OUR marriage!

In this very first chapter, Milan + Kay point out that from infancy, we have been learning how to love. This idea is scary to us because it means that prior to reading this book, we really had no idea we had a love “style”, nor did we realize that how our parents interacted (both with us + with one another) when we were children shaped how we love each other. In other words, early experiences have a LASTING impression on our souls! The book, + our six-ish months of marriage, have taught us that marriage is the most challenging relationship that we will EVER have. By God’s design, it exposes our injurious imprints + love styles. It exposes us. It challenges us to face all of the character flaws we both knew we had + the ones we were unaware of. It forces us to develop a deeper understanding of what selflessness REALLY is. (Like watching the Bachelor with your wife when you could be playing guitar, or listening to the same song being played over + over + over again on the guitar while your trying to read looks like)!! It’s far from glamorous, but it is SO rewarding.

Maison + I want you to know that our marriage is FAR from perfect. But it’s in this imperfection that we are able to find God’s grace, God’s love, patience, understanding, + beauty. If it is SO hard for me to forgive Maison for something as small as almost spilling coffee on the computer, how can the creator of the universe send His son to die to forgive my sins? Amazing.

The beauty of the challenge that IS marriage is that the word “challenge” in itself isn’t meant to be a bad thing. There is no such thing as a quick fix. The good news is that God has provided us with a life partner that has committed to not only loving us, but also to helping us discover the roots of our love style so that we can push each other to become more like Christ. I’m a strong believer that I am most productive in problem solving when I choose to face my discomfort or pain head on.  It’s like the check engine light coming on in your car! We can ignore the problem because we don’t want to deal with the hassle of fixing it (+ then run the risk of causing more damage down the road–no pun intended! ;p!), OR we can choose to face the problem head on + get to the underlying issue!

Marriage is a beautiful woman who when faced with the worst of me chooses to love me the same.  It is our prayer that we can grow together in community with you to strengthen + encourage each other in our marriages. That we would be able to recognize our weaknesses + overcome them, + that we would turn our awkward teenage prom dance of a marriage into a beautiful waltz.

Until next time, C