What Having Kids Really Does To Your Marriage

April 8, 2015June 22, 20163 Comments

Six years and four months ago my husband and I became parents for the very first time. We had no idea what we were doing when we brought our son home to our two bedroom townhouse with nothing but a bili-bed, some blankets and formula supplements from the hospital. There was no manual and very little instructions. We were both in disbelief that someone would send two twenty-five year old kids with no experience home with a human life to care for and keep alive. We felt like goldfish being tossed into a cold water tank just praying that the quick transition from the cozy comfortable waters of not being a parent to the cold, unnavigated and unchartered waters of being a parent wouldn’t lead us to become lifeless floaters.

Or at least leave our marriage lifeless and floating at the top of the surface.

I’ve heard it said that “having children can ruin a marriage” and I know this may be true for some but having kids has actually done many positive things in our marriage. Having kids has given us, those two young goldfish kids, the perspective that even though there were times we felt like goldfish years ago we were never destined to be floaters in that small pond. Together, my husband and I have been able to lead one another to deeper waters, experience deep challenges and actually find ourselves growing and thriving, especially in our marriage.

We brought four babies home from the hospital. Between the twenty-fifth year of my life and my thirtieth we brought home four babies from the hospital. Three sons and a daughter. Each time feeling the shock of the cold water as we were thrown into managing two children, then three and then four.

There were days and seasons where we felt like our marriage was on the edge of this ruin we had heard about before. There were seasons where I sometimes could see the life in our marriage beginning to slowly die and watch it begin to float to the surface.

We were so tired.

So overwhelmed.

My husband expressed jealousy over how much attention I paid to the children and I sometimes resented being at home all day.

We were barely able to manage the little lives that were graciously given to us and sometimes we found ourselves sacrificing us for them. Those were the times when I slowly started to see our marriage begin to float (lifeless) to the surface of our little pond. This has been part of the journey and it has not come without hard lessons and tough waters.

It was a hard lesson for us to learn to choose each other and bring life back into us and our marriage. There were many fights and many tears until we faced the truth that before we were graciously given these little lives to care for we were graciously given one another. We were graciously given the gift of marriage first and it was our job to learn how to put us and our marriage before them.

I can see how having kids could ruin marriage if you forget to choose one another first. I could see it in those moments when we failed to choose one another first and I began to see those lifeless seasons of our marriage. When we were so busy tending to them we forgot about caring for us.

So, two years ago we decided that we would fight to choose one another. That was always our intention going into this whole parenting thing but somehow we lost that good intention in the exhaustion, the diapers and the cheerios and we found ourselves desperately digging and turning over every crumb to get it back.

Now our kids are six, four, three and almost a year and a half and it is a relief to say we are through those challenging years of having new babies and all that exhaustion. And our marriage made it though. Four times. It is a miracle and a gift.

It is a miracle and a gift to come out on the other side of that hard stage in our marriage and see my husband with a new lens. It’s like the Michael I once knew was just a boy back then before the kids and now I find myself looking at a man.

A man who kneels beside the beside and prays with my children every night.

A man who gets lost in children’s literature with my kindergartener and keeps him up past bedtime reading just one more chapter.

A man who takes the kids to the doctor for their vaccinations when I am too afraid to do it myself because I can’t stand the sight of my sweet baby crying or being stuck by a needle.

A man who has taught my sons to love God, love fishing and who digs for bugs with them.

A man who sings to my daughter when he pulls the blinds up in her room in the morning.

A man who will come home if he has an hour between his daytime hours and nighttime meetings just so he can push kids on the swings and give me forty five minutes of quiet.

Having kids has given me a lens of tenderness, love and care to see my husband through and that lens has made my love grow more deeply for him.

Choosing to see him as the man he has grown into because of being a father has given me a stronger and deeper connection to him and a heart that is more tender for him.

Having kids has also given us the firm foundation of finding ourselves on a team. It has to be us against them. There are only two of us and four of them so we have to stick together. We find ourselves laughing on our team when our kids do crazy things like walk into the same bathroom stall as another kid and pee in the toilet with them, at the same time, all while casually sharing our plans for our family vacation to Florida. Even if this other child was a complete stranger. (That is only a glimpse into the crazy).

We find ourselves supporting one another when a parenting situation is hard. We need each other. I sometimes need to tag him in for awhile when I feel the wind in my sails fading over discipline or even homework.

Having kids has given us deeper unity together. Something that I hope and pray grows as we approach having four teenagers all at the same time.

Having kids has given us a common interest to invest our heart and souls into and it has also given us something to grow in and get better at together. We exchange helpful phrases and prayers as we fight to grow.

Having kids has given me a better friend in my husband than I ever could have dreamed of having when we were those two young goldfish in that two bedroom apartment with that newborn baby.

I never expected having kids to bring trials into our marriage and I never expected those trials to deepen my love for my husband. I know we have many more years of choosing one another and fighting to be us against them. But these early trials have brought us together and made us stronger which make me think if we can survive the little years maybe there is hope for the rest of our parenting days.

Having kids really can (and has for us) deepen the relationship between a husband and a wife. It has given us an unbreakable bond. Look at that husband, he is such a gift to me.

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Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

(James 1:2-3 NLT)

Teach Them To Pray

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015Leave a comment

I am currently reading Timothy Keller’s book, Prayer. I am the kind of reader who reads the last chapter when I am about halfway through a book, the anticipation of the last words is the kind of anticipation that causes me to read the end before the middle. I cave. Every book, every time.

Keller’s last words on Prayer say, “Why are we settling for water when we could have wine?”

This question rips through me. Prayer can be something that we as human beings just spin around on the circle of what we have always known. We know to pray when we are in trouble and need help or we pray and ask God to give us what we want. That is what I have always done and this kind of prayer is right and biblical, “give us this day our daily bread” simply means give us what we need, help us Lord.

When I get stuck on the wheel of the “I want” and “help me” prayers, also known in the church as supplication prayers, I find myself settling for water instead of wine. Prayer becomes very much about me and what I want and less about God. The relationship of prayer is one-sided and I become the main event. When I make prayer about me, I am settling for water.

I can have access to wine when I seek to have a two-sided relationship with the God of The Universe. When my prayer requests for everything that is wrong around me become only a part of my prayer life instead of the only thing I pray for is when I will break the hamster wheel of spinning around what I have always known about prayer.

This is hard to do. In the world of weight lifting it is recorded that “It takes 3,000 to 5,000 repetitions to burn a movement into your body’s muscle memory.” a minimum of 3,000 times at the generous amount of praying three times a day (Keller’s book suggests two) would take you 1,000 days to change the muscle memory of your prayers. This is three years! Three years of forcing yourself to step outside of your comfort zone and feel the soreness and pains of a new workout.

As adults it is much harder for us to change our ways. Most of us are already set in the way we do things. Especially when we do not live in community with others who are committed to the process of walking in this life as Christians and committed to growth and change in their watery prayer lives.

As I read Keller’s book all I can think about is, “What if my kids just always knew how to have a vibrant prayer life?” What if my kids just always heard prayer as a two-sided relationship, a conversation of the peeling back of our hearts and praise to the One who desperately wants them?

At night I pray with my sons and around 18 months I will begin to pray with my daughter at night time by their beds. Sometimes I am tired and I settle for the watery prayers of safety while they sleep and protection over their thoughts and their dreams. But I never forget to say, “Lord, please change the hearts of my kids so they know you and love you with all their heart and give them friends and spouses that love you with their whole hearts too.”

I say this so often that while talking to my youngest son (3) about the gospel just the other day, I went through the normal questions…

1. What did Jesus do? (He died on the cross)

2. Why did Jesus die on the cross? (For our sins)

3. Did Jesus stay on the cross? (No, He rose again and He lives forever in heaven)

4. What does it mean if you believe Jesus died on the cross for you sins? (We can live forever with Him in heaven where there is no more crying and no more bad guys)

Instead of the answer I normally get from our children to question two, Jesus died for my sins, my three year old confidently said, “Jesus died for my heart.”

My three year old basically smacked me in the face with the same words I have been praying over his bed since he was 18 months old. “Jesus died for my heart.” What a beautiful picture of the gospel to see in that moment. Jesus wants our whole hearts, not just the pieces we offer to give Him when we feel like we need Him. We need him all the time, the chaos of our hearts just prevents us of seeing that clearly.

What if we could teach our kids to pray so we could break the “settling for water” cycle and our kids just always knew how to have access to the wine: the rich, full-bodied relationship that you can find in prayer if you choose to train your muscles differently.

What if our children just always knew that Jesus wants our hearts in prayer?

Here are a few suggestions. I am not an expert so I know there are more legitimate resources out there for teaching children how to pray. I am just a mom, not a theologian or a parenting expert, these are the tools that are working for me to teach my kids to pray.

1. Pray so often that it isn’t something they feel like they have to do but they feel like prayer is something they can’t live without.

2. Pray when you discipline them before they leave time out. Ask for forgiveness and thank Jesus for paying the penalty of sin on the cross.

3. Pray for them on the way to school. Turn the radio off and ask what they need Jesus to give them for that day. On the way home, ask if Jesus helped them and if He did pray in praise to God so they can see the tangible work of God in their lives.

4. Pray scripture with your kids. Teach them to access God through His words, not just our human words. Let the words from the Bible saturate your words when you pray with them. Recently, my six year old was struggling with seeing scary images from a television show at night time. He was working on memorizing Philippians 4:8 (Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things.) We just prayed those scriptures at night and then I followed up to see if God answered His prayers.

5. Use the Lord’s Prayer as a framework to teach them to pray:

Adoration prayers: prayers about how awesome God is. (Our Father Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name)

Confession prayers: specific ways about how we fall short of the glory and holiness of God. (Forgive us our debts)

Thankfulness prayers: thankfulness for things but also salvation and the rescuing of our hearts (This gives us the recognition of the Giver of all things, 1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Supplication prayers: prayers asking God to help us, heal us, protect us (Give us this day our daily bread and deliver us from evil, )

6. Model going to God in prayer and praying full bodied prayers rich with relationship.

7. This may be a harsh one but when I find my kids asking for material things or wanting things in the store that they don’t need, I ask them to think of the things God has already given to them and pray with thanksgiving for what they already have.

As I read Tim Keller’s Book on Prayer, I can only dream and hope that my sons and my daughter will one day pick the same book up twenty years from now and think, yeah, my parents taught me to pray like this.

The next generation of believers could be so great and full of faith if we simply changed our water for wine and taught our sons and daughters to grow more deeply in their prayer life.

May my kids, your kids and the kids of every tribe, tongue and nation never know a day without giving God their hearts in full-bodied prayer.

You Are My Sunshine

February 20, 2015February 20, 20151 Comment

There was a time when I couldn’t sing the song, “You Are My Sunshine” without crying. Somewhere near the part about taking my sunshine away, the tears would begin to blanket my eyes, the tears wouldn’t fall but the blanketing tears were present, enough to blur my vision and remind me of grief.

With my oldest it as been difficult to sing the song so, for years, we have been exchanging phrases while I hoover over his bed…

you are my sunshine…

you are my daisy.

you are my warm summer day…

you are my giant ice cream cone.

For a long time, I haven’t been able to sing the words “you are my sunshine” to my oldest child. Too many blanketing tears would come to blur my vision.

Tonight was different, tonight, I made it through a whole diddy of you are my sunshine with my youngest son without the blanketing of tears. At the end I whispered to him, “you are my sunshine.” and I looked right at him with pure eyes and a happy heart. (In return my son half sleepily said, “you are my poopy butt diaper.” I giggle because in a strange way he is being affectionate and silly.)

But tonight, I made it though a whole diddy of “you are my sunshine.” That is progress for me and this is the moment where I can see the hope of moving on shining brighter than the dark nights of hovering phrases and blanketing tears. The time isn’t healing my wounds but Jesus is. He is binding them up ever so carefully and making me able to sing sweet songs to my kids over their beds in the darkness.

He is gentle with His love and He is patient with my grief.

“Love is patient, love is kind.”

I remember my mother singing that song to me. I can still hear her voice, her voice sounds just like the voice I have grown into as a woman and as a mother. It hurts my heart that she is not here and my kids can’t know her, but God is finally moving me to a different place in my grief. With Jesus binding the hurts and God renewing me, I can see that my kids knowing my mom simply comes from my kids knowing me.

My mom lives on in my songs.

My kids can know her through knowing me.

I am her sunshine, so my sun is beginning to shine bright in the darkness of grief.

And They Lived Happily Ever After (A Sequel)

February 4, 2015February 4, 2015Leave a comment

(an old post made new)

Oh Cinderella, how I love to watch you and you Prince Charming drive off in that royal carriage. And then ah! to see the words on the last page of your storybook, “and they lived happily ever after.” As a young child and even as a young woman the last pages of your story helped me write the beginning pages of my future love story.

I know there are sequels to Cinderella but I always stopped at the ending of Cinderella’s first story, which left this girl wondering, What is happily ever after?

For as long as I can remember I built the beginning of my real life love story on those happy ending words. Where Me, Mrs., and Him, Mr., mostly made googley eyes, packed our bags for romantic getaways and the two of us together had mind reading powers and effortless communication.

In my happily ever after, I built up the image of the smiling and the kissing and the frolicking off into the sunset.

Now I’ve been married for almost nine years, which is not that long, but it is long enough to know my perceived happily ever after was as real as the story where I initially found the phrase.

My assumptions about what marriage could be like came from the pages of storybooks and off of the silver screens where the authors and screen writers seem to leave out the mundane everydayness of what happens in real marriage.

In When Sinners Say I Do, my favorite book on marriage, Dave Harvey writes about how every Jane Austen movie is the same.

The stories all end at the altar, just when reality is about to come knocking. Romance movies are about the dizzying tornado of romantic love picking you up in its whirling funnel and setting you down at the chapel doors all giddy and beautifully dressed.

(page 136)

Almost nine years of marriage and FOUR children later I have come to realize that my expectations for happily ever after were crazy and unreachable. Happily ever after was just a phrase, and I am no Cinderella and as much as I love my sweet husband, he is not a cliche character in a fairy tale.

My husband is a man, and I am a woman. We are both made in the image of God but at the same time our hearts are fallen, our desires are naturally bent to serve ourselves before we serve one another.

The true story about love that I should have been looking to all along was the story of Jesus and the rescued people who trust in Him for redemption.

Yes, fairytales and other media leave out the everydayness of marriage. But real marriage, two people choosing to come together in the not-so-theatrical moments is more romantic than those first giddy butterfly feelings. To choose love when you are a sleep deprived testy new parent is an everyday heroic gift you can give to your spouse. To choose dating which sometimes means dragging yourself away from crying toddlers is the mundane everydayness where you can find happily ever after.

It just doesn’t look as polished as I though it would. Marriage can have rough patches. And marriage just won’t work without looking to Jesus.

The Bible is a love story of God continually rescuing people and wooing them to Himself. In the Bible you find people who do not deserve love being loved and people being rescued even when they didn’t deserve the rescuing.

For a long time I let the world shape what I though marriage should be and I tried to cram myself and Michael into that hole. In the past and still sometimes today I drink from the “happily married” cistern.

I’ve written about cisterns before, they are a huge part of the story of how God is redeeming me personally. A cistern in the time of the Bible is a large jug that people used to hold water and give life and an end to thirst. Today some people call cisterns, idols. Normally cisterns or idols are good things. But they become all consuming when we worship the good gift more than the Giver of the gift.

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

(Jeremiah 2:13)

I drank from the “happily ever after marriage” cistern. Sometimes I still find myself doing it and then I am still left feeling empty and unsatisfied.

Marriage can be a good thing. Marriage is a gift. But no one should ever find themselves worshipping the gift more than the Giver. That is when the thirst comes.

There are times when I value the gift of marriage more than the Giver of marriage. In The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller writes,

If we look to our spouses to fill up our tanks in a way that only God can do, we are demanding an impossibility. (page 52)

At times, I have depended on my marriage to fill up my tank. I believed that if Michael and I could just be more happily ever after, if we could just try harder, we would be better.

All that working and spinning of the try harder wheels left me exhausted.

When we were first married and even still now, I lacked the eyes of the gospel. The eyes that see the Giver and the gift in the proper order. And the eyes of the gospel that see me, a woman and my husband, a man, two normal people needing, craving, seeking the grace of Jesus. Every moment of every day.

I see now that I was depending on a “happily ever after” marriage to fill up my tank and make me happy. And I know now that in my fallen sinful heart I still have the tendency to do this. With the eyes of the gospel I have found that happily ever after marriage is not meant to be perfect. Nothing on this side of heaven will ever be perfect except Jesus and how he is weaving our marriage story, unraveling the bad expectations and threading the new. In this life of a normal woman and a normal man living life together I have found that “happily ever after” marriage is perfecting when I stop looking to the gift alone to fill me up and see the Giver and his grace He has given to me in Jesus.

Only God is perfect, and as we pursue Him together He is perfecting us, even when neither of us deserved His love in the first place.

As Mr. and Mrs., Michael and I are both on a journey together of simply learning how to love one another better and most importantly reflect glory and dependance upon God to our watching children and the world.

We mess this up a lot. But we are thankful for the forgiveness and grace that is found in a marriage where two people depend on Jesus. Extending and receiving grace.

So I can now breathe. I can stop trying to cram myself and my husband into this thought up expectation of “happily ever after”.

I can stop trying and start depending.

I am thankful that I am married to a man that believes in extending grace. Oh Lord, the grace my husband extends me is like that extra long swifter duster extender that finds all the tough to reach places. I have so many tough to reach places.

Happily ever after is not frolicking in meadows, it is frolicking in grace.

As you think about love this month, think about how things from stories and movies may bring unrealistic expectations into marriage and consider getting rid of the unachievable expectations and finding deep breaths in Jesus.

Please pass this on too.

Always dancing in this gospel dance with you.

Are You Ready?

January 24, 2015January 24, 20151 Comment

But are YOU ready?

This very question has plagued me for the last four weeks as my husband has accepted the call to lead our church as the senior pastor. I’ve heard the question come in the form of love, several times, over and over.

I’ve also heard it maybe once or twice seasoned, only lightly seasoned, with doubt and skepticism. For the few doubters, know…I am with you. I am my biggest critic, my own worst enemy.

This question has maybe been lurking in the shadows for me for a long time.

For weeks I have panicked and prayed, prayed and panicked. Feeling consumed by the fear and doubt that I may not be ready enough.

In my prayers, I have panicked: God, am I ready? And I have pleaded: God, please make me ready.

In my unbelief it is so easy to panic and let the questions and the doubt lurking in the shadows consume me. I am humanly wired to let the voice of my sinful heart overshadow what God says is really true about me from his Word. But oh, The Lord is at work in this girl from total darkness and I’ve been battling my unbelief long enough to know that nothing quiets the doubt better than the Word of the Lord.

When I find myself turning to the Word and letting truth cover the questions lurking in the shadows I find rest. I have found that there is nothing more powerful than God’s Word to cover the worries, the fear and the doubt.

In the promises from scripture, I find silence from the voices and the Light makes those lurking shadows seem to disappear.

After a long time of laboring over my insecurities with prayer… It hit me like a ton of bricks one day while I was sweeping up the many crumbs from under our kitchen table.

I am not ready at all.

not ready.

I don’t have to be ready. God has called my husband and I to live this part of our story in this place and in this time and His calling is enough.

Isaiah 43:13

For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.

In the spaces where I am lacking readiness, God is giving me faith. Faith that God has called me to be worthy enough to be next to my husband in this next chapter. God is not calling me to perfection, He is calling me to depend on Him. Even in my unreadiness God is taking my hand, commanding me not to fear because He will help me. All that is required of me is simply dependence.

God does not require me to be ready. Ah, it sounds so nice to write that down. God only requires me to faithfully depend on him.

As a woman of faith, I can come before God bringing him nothing. God accepts me in my unreadiness. He clothes me, He loves me, He sets my feet on dry and stable ground.

I think of when Moses did not feel ready to go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites go back to the promised land. He even expressed his unreadiness to God.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” But God said, “But I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:11)

When I look back at my life I’ve never been completely ready for the things God has prepared for me: I’ve never been ready for anything else before.

I wasn’t ready to go to college. But God was with me and I grew. I cried hard tears. I learned. I fell. I made mistakes. But the whole time, God was with me, drawing me to Himself.

I wasn’t ready to be a teacher for the first time. I thought I was, I was credentialed enough but, looking back now, those at risk students in that city school taught me more than I ever could have taught them.

Even with all of the marriage counseling we had I was not fully ready for marriage. But God has covered our unreadiness with love and grace.

And Lord knows, I was never ready to be a parent four different times in five years. Most days I feel like I’m sinking, barely clinging on to the new mercies that come every morning.

God has been holding my hand, helping me, loving me and giving me what I needed all along the way.

I am not ready.

I am thankful that the church is one of the only places, that I can confidently yell from the rooftops, I am not ready for everything that may cross my path this week, this month or this year.

I am thankful for a God who calls the unready and the unable. I am glad he holds the hand and helps those who say like Moses, but who am I?

God has answered me in my pleading and my panicking. He has answered me by showing me I am not ready to do this by myself but I have the hand of a Great God helping me.

In my unbelief I have found truth, comfort and depending peace to cover the voices and the questions lurking in the dark shadows.

God is the One who does the calling, I will try to walk in belief that I know what He is up to.

“I believe. Help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)