Getting Ready for Marriage

Early marriage needs to become more normal among Christians, argue numerous sources I came across while single. Yesterday, reading the article “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” reminded me of this topic again. Settling down with a spouse in one’s early twenties, as opposed to waiting indefinitely for financial stability or other favorable circumstances, can have many benefits.

That sounded great to me as a single. But shouldn’t this message be aimed more toward young men, not young women? (All of the sources I listed above do acknowledge that; Candice Watters has written an entire book dedicated toward what women can do to productively wait.) I believe that God calls men to be leaders in their homes, and that starts by taking the initiative in pursuing their future wives. As a single woman, my responsibility was to wait, not look for a husband.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I also wanted to avoid being caught up in the desire for marriage to the point where I didn’t enjoy being single. But I was a little self-defeating in this mindset. No one seriously pursued me until I met the man who would become my husband. So before I met him, I was trying to resign myself to years of singleness stretching out through my twenties. I really didn’t prepare much for marriage.

There are a few things I would have done differently if I could relive my single years after high school (i.e. my college years). Taking these steps would have benefited me even if I hadn’t ended up getting married.

1. Learning a flexible, marketable skill. Even if I stayed single, serving in a full-time volunteer capacity or working in a non-profit organization, having a skill would have still come in handy in the long run. And it would have been a blessing to bring into my marriage. This doesn’t have to be a four-year degree that takes up all of your time and energy in preparing for the future. It can be any certification or training that can turn into a job. The more flexible, the better – if possible, make it something that would allow you to work from home and even set your own hours.
2. Staying out of debt. As much as I enjoyed my private Christian college experience, I wish that I had considered the financial cost as a 17-year-old freshman. I didn’t even consider the burden I would be asking my husband to shoulder by bringing thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of debt into the marriage. It’s especially discouraging to me because I have a ministry degree that doesn’t fit any specific job title. Now that I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom indefinitely, I’m glad that I have a four-year degree, but I wish I had focused on getting it without going into debt.
3. Brushing up on those homemaking skills. I didn’t care much about this during college, beyond keeping things orderly for my own sanity. I should have cooked more, beyond Pasta Roni and Ramen noodles, and developed my taste in interior design so I would have an idea of what I liked.
4. Getting a handle on the emotions. No man wants to be married to an emotional basket case. If there’s one blog entry of mine I apply the least, it’s probably Listening and Led: Emotions. For me, this would have meant making sure I was prepared to have self-control and have the ability to be honest and authentic with my husband without complaining, manipulating, or drawing him into my black hole of introspection. Ultimately, this means that the Lord is the one I must rely on to be my refuge and comforter, and while my husband is my best friend, he cannot be my God. I am still learning this, and I wish that I had learned it more thoroughly before I was married.

Now on the flip side, here are some ways that God prepared me for marriage while I was still single – things for which I’m very thankful!

1. Learning from marriages around me. In the challenging territory of being a new wife, I’ve relied on memories from my past, and examples I have now. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have no godly examples to remember while I navigate this new ground – my parents first and foremost, as well as other Christian couples I grew up around and know today.
2. Reserving close friendships for girls, not guys. I’m so glad God protected me from being in other relationships before I was married, and although I avoided close male friendships for multiple reasons (shyness being one of them), and I definitely wasn’t perfect, I’m glad the boundary lines stayed where they were.
3. Pursuing my own interests and passions while I waited. In fact, my love for writing (and blogging by extension) was how I met my husband. Had I focused all my time and energy on waiting for the future instead of living in the present, I wouldn’t have had as much to bring to my marriage. God grew and developed me as a single woman before I became a wife.
4. Growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. This was all His mercy, and none of my doing. I wish I had grown much more. But I would have been completely unprepared for marriage had I not known and loved the Lord increasingly in my single years. He helped me to remain true to my convictions, even when I felt very alone in them. And He graced me with a husband who leads me, and with whom I can grow in spiritual unity.

So getting married really isn’t about when. It’s about who – who God is, first of all. He is sovereign, He has a plan, He works all things together for good (Rom. 8:28), and He wants our lives, single or married, to be oriented around Him. It’s also about who we are in Christ, and who we marry in God’s perfect will. I’m thankful that I got married at a young age, because marriage is a blessing. But marriage means nothing without Christ! His love is better than life (Ps. 63:3).

A New Homemaker

I didn’t think I would become a stay-at-home mom at age 23. As I finished high school and began my college career, I tried not to focus on my desire for marriage and motherhood, my “dream job.” My reasoning was simple: I didn’t want to waste my single years pining after a husband and children. And I honestly didn’t think a godly man would find me and pursue me anytime soon.

So instead, I concentrated on my options as a single woman after college graduation, unaware that I would be meeting my future husband less than a month after commencement.

Fast forward one year (exactly!), and my new husband and I were finding out about our first baby on the way (already!). I had just cut my hours back from 40 to 30 a week at the daycare so I would have time to look for another job. This turned out to be an unexpected blessing as all-day “morning” sickness began to assail me. Eventually, my husband and my boss were kind enough to let me reduce my hours to 10 a week while I was dealing with nausea. I’ve continued that schedule since then.

While getting used to marriage and pregnancy, I was also getting used to being responsible for my own house. It didn’t come as naturally as I’d hoped. I was still pretty unorganized from our move in, far from a pro at cooking and meal planning, and beset with constant nausea and fatigue. Being an “all-or-nothing” girl, it was hard for me to even know where to begin, and in between my daily popsicle for breakfast and my husband cooking his own dinner at night, I felt like a failure. How did stay-at-home moms do it? I wasn’t even a stay-at-home mom yet, and I was already falling behind.

As the weeks passed and I finally began to feel better, I realized just how terrible I’d felt for all that time, and I stopped being so hard on myself for being behind. My struggle became knowing how to get a handle on all of the stuff filling our two spare rooms, and finding a system for cleaning and cooking. I really wanted to make headway on these two things before I became a real stay-at-home mom with much less discretionary time.

Here are some things I’ve learned about homemaking over the past several months. I am trying to form good habits in them now so that I will have a good foundation when the baby is born. They really address my particular weaknesses, so I don’t know whether they’ll be relevant to you or not. But I’m sharing nonetheless.

1. Have a system for cleaning. This means a system that works for you. If your “system” is to fly by the seat of your pants and clean what you can when you can, that’s great, as long as you get it all accomplished. I just figured out which tasks I need to accomplish every week, and I divided them up among the weekdays. I do laundry and vacuuming on Mondays, for instance. This doesn’t include deep cleaning, but it does give me a guide for getting the basics done. Having a plan is so much better for me than vaguely hoping I’ll get the house clean.
2. Make dishes a priority. Every time I let the dishes pile up (we don’t have a working dishwasher), my entire house seems messier. I would want to clean up the entire house and then do the dishes, but I’m learning that even if I haven’t had time to do anything else, if the kitchen is neat and clean, the whole house seems cleaner and more peaceful. And washing three or four dishes at a time is much less daunting than washing fifteen or twenty.
3. Get ready for the day. I still struggle with this one. It was worst during the first trimester. But even if I don’t have anywhere to go right away, I don’t want to lounge around in my pj’s half the day. Even if I’m feeling sick and I sit down on the couch afterwards, getting ready makes me feel a little more prepared for the day.
4. It’s much easier to maintain than to catch up. If everything has a place, it’s so much easier to tidy up the house – just return things to their places. If the breakfast dishes were washed and put away hours ago, it’s much more pleasant to get the supper dishes out of the way right after we eat. If the bathroom is cleaned every week, keeping it looking fresh every day is much easier.
5. Don’t be a perfectionist; just do something. I get overwhelmed by clutter really easily. If my whole house isn’t organized (when will it ever be?), I convince myself it’s not worth trying. But how will anything ever get done if I don’t work on it a little at a time? And if I can’t live with imperfection now, while it’s just my husband and me, how will I ever be a peaceful mother? I don’t want to drive my kids crazy by being obsessed with tidiness. I don’t want to feel guilty every time I’m too sick to scrub the toilets. I just want to keep things running smoothly, and that takes daily small efforts.

A Scripture passage that convicted me about laziness at home was the description of a godly widow in 1 Timothy 5: “She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives” (vv. 5-6). Paul goes on to describe some of the actions of a widow who has lived a godly life: bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the saints’ feet, caring for the afflicted, and devoting herself to good works (v. 10). I have a natural inclination to laziness, but how true it is that living for my own ease and pleasure isn’t living at all.

And I’m also learning that if I’m following my little homemaking “tips and tricks” for my own pleasure and peace of mind, I’m not glorifying God. The fruits of hard work are pleasurable, true. God is a God of order and peace, and when we imitate Him in that, I think it always blesses us too. But I should want to be a good homemaker for my family’s sake, not my own. This means I want home to be as homey as possible. It’s meant to be lived in, and I don’t ever want to make my husband and children feel like 1) they can’t relax at home because I want it to look perfect all the time, or 2) they can’t enjoy being home because it’s a place of disorder and chaos. I hope to find the happy medium!

I’m such a novice at this, and I love hearing advice from those more experienced than I. I’ve also spent quite enough time typing out this blog entry, and I need to go finish some things before the day is over. Hmm… perhaps #6 on my list should be “Don’t blog until you’ve accomplished all your other goals for the day.”

Last week of advent

4 days till Christmas…

I am most excited about having my husband home with me the rest of the week starting Wednesday night. I just like being able to do everything together.

We had a busy weekend. We hung out with friends, watched A Christmas Story and Elf (two of my all-time Christmas favorites), went shopping, got pictures taken at the beach, and very excitingly, got to see my dear friend Sarah who was my maid of honor! She drove six hours just to spend five hours with me. I was so blessed by that and absolutely loved spending time with her.

This week? Well, so far I’m doing laundry, catching up on my blog reading, and enjoying the fact that it was 39 degrees when we woke up this morning! (What a perfect Florida Christmas.) I have to mail out Christmas cards today. We have a Christmas Eve service at church on Thursday, which I’m very happy about because I didn’t think there was going to be one.

Baby and I are doing well… 34 weeks today! He’s the size of a cantaloupe. No wonder I get tired! We had an ultrasound last Wednesday to check his growth, and he is in the 58th percentile… I am just small. So I am thankful for that!

This is my last week of working at the daycare. I have just been doing a couple hours a day for the past several months, giving my coworkers breaks during naptime, so it hasn’t been bad at all – I’ve enjoyed having some structure to my day and bringing in a little money. But I am looking forward to being done with daycares, and being a full-time wife and mommy… What a great calling. I never thought it would come so soon!

Still working on getting back into blogging and finding my niche again, but these are some of my ramblings this morning.

home for Christmas

You know that feeling you have when you’re getting over an illness? It’s kind of disorienting, like the world just wobbled on its axis. I have my little routine and plan for getting things done and getting ready for Christmas, and I was totally thrown off by being out of commission this weekend. (I know, wait till I have a newborn…)

So here I am on Tuesday morning, with laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning to do and belated Christmas preparations to make. It’s really not that much; it just feels a little overwhelming since I’m still feeling kind of out of it.

I feel like Christmas sneaked up on me – suddenly it’s next week! This is my first Christmas away from home, although it is my first Christmas in my new home. We probably would have been in Ohio for Christmas this year if I wasn’t almost eight months pregnant… not the best time to travel.

I’m sort of teetering between two extremes right now. One part of me wants to jump into action, get things done, and enjoy the season in spite of still feeling off. The other part of me wants to wallow, “rest,” and feel sorry for myself because I’m tired of being alone right now.

…Which is why I’m writing this blog post, because I won’t be as tempted to wallow if I remember that people read this entry! What a great opportunity to focus on other people instead of on myself. Instead of seeking to make Christmas what I want it to be for me, I know the Lord wants me to serve Him and others.

Of all the gifts the Lord has given me this year, the greatest has been my husband. I love him so much. He was, as always, a huge blessing while I was sick, even when I asked him to go to the pharmacy at 6:30 on Sunday morning, and he missed church to stay home with me, and drove me to the hospital, cleaned up my sicky mess, bought me Gatorade and popsicles, and washed the dishes after making his own dinner of macaroni and cheese and hot dogs last night.

I have to go to work now… I’m feeling quite bloggy again lately, so I think I’ll update again soon.

Sick Sunday Saga

So my weekend didn’t go exactly as planned…

Friday night and Saturday were good. I made potato soup, A.J. and I watched The Christmas Shoes (pretty cheesy, but Kimberly Williams is a good actress), ran some errands, looked at travel systems, and hung up some wall decor.

Unfortunately, I woke up sick (as in throwing up) at 3 a.m. Sunday morning, and continued getting sick the rest of the morning and early afternoon. A.J. made a 6:30 a.m. run to the pharmacy to pick up a nausea medication refill I had left. But even my trusty Zofran failed me – I stopped getting sick and was able to sleep for a few hours, but once I woke up again around 11, I was getting sick every half hour again.

I could tell I was getting dehydrated, of course – I’d only held down a few swallows of Gatorade that morning, and my medicine wasn’t helping. So we decided to call the doctor and see if there was anything we could do before going to the hospital. She said we should go to labor and delivery this time instead of the ER, since I was past 20 weeks (I am 33 weeks today).

The funny thing about this was that we were supposed to go on a tour of labor and delivery on Saturday morning, but we decided to stay home and sleep in instead – so I got a tour that was a little more than I bargained for.

By this time it was about 3:00 in the afternoon and I was getting sick about every 15 minutes, which is definitely one of the most miserable feelings ever. I was so thirsty, I was just imagining drinking out of a waterfall, chugging a whole bottle of Gatorade, sipping ice water… nothing sounded better to me, although of course my body wouldn’t allow me to keep any fluid in!

Thank the Lord for modern medicine. After what seemed like forever, I was finally hooked up to an IV of fluids and some nausea medication. The first round didn’t help much and I was still getting sick, so they tried a different kind and that actually worked. It pretty much knocked me out and had me sleeping. Between that and the rehydration, I felt a lot better and was able to drink some water and Gatorade.

Meanwhile, they were monitoring the baby’s heartbeat, so we got to hear it pretty much the whole time. They also said I was having some minor contractions, probably brought about by the dehydration, so to pay attention once I got home and call if they started getting regular or painful. I haven’t really felt any today, though.

Other than having a fever this morning (I think because I have a cold), I’ve been feeling much better today. What a relief! I’m so thankful to be feeling better.

So that was my Sunday for you… I was sad to miss church and the maternity photo shoot we were going to do, but I am just grateful that I have access to good medical care that can help me recover, and a wonderful husband who takes care of me, and the Lord’s grace in causing me to get better!

A Christmas Baby

Expecting my first baby at Christmas-time lends a little new wonder to the season. Not only am I pregnant, I’m in my third trimester, so I’m acutely aware of my little son throughout the day (and night!). He kicks, wiggles, and pushes, delighting us with his precious existence. And while Advent is upon us and Christmas gets closer, God has used baby Christian to open my eyes a bit more to the mystery and miracle of the incarnation.

I’ve been reading through the gospels over the past week or two, and the other day I reached Luke 1-2. The familiar words held a new depth for me, especially in two ways.

1) Mary’s obedient, humble, trusting willingness to carry and give birth to the Savior.

Her only inquiry was how this miracle would come about, since she was a virgin. Her only response was, ““Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And she overflowed with praise in God’s goodness to her (vv. 36-55).

While reading this chapter, I wondered what Mary’s pregnancy was like. I thought, She must have never seen fit to complain about any of the woes of pregnancy, because she was carrying the Savior of the world.

But that thought convicted me. What right do I have to complain about pregnancy difficulties, either? God created this child, and I am the only mother he has. I am not carrying him for my own benefit and pleasure, but because God has called me to be a selfless servant. Now, if only I can remember this when I am tempted to unburden my mind to my husband again about how much I’m enduring!

2) Jesus’ incredible humility.

My favorite Christmas song this year has been “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” especially the verse Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail th’ incarnate Deity / Pleased as man with men to dwell / Jesus our Emmanuel. How can the human mind comprehend an all-powerful God who would become a human embryo inside the womb of a young girl? He submitted Himself to such lowliness and helplessness for us.

I am very thankful for the blessing of pregnancy and the privilege of bringing a new child into the world, even though it’s a journey fraught with discomfort and pain. I hope to continue reminding myself of what God is teaching me through this season.

Photo credit

Luke 2

I’m sorry to post a video twice in a row, but I loved these clips of Orison Piper narrating Luke 2. According to the YouTube page, he learned a lot of the chapter just by hearing it read out loud every day for a couple of weeks.

Real Vision

This is a Christian rap song by Trip Lee. I really like the imagery he uses to show all of the messages that we hear from the world, contrasted with the truth of God’s Word. I included the lyrics below because this isn’t exactly my original culture so I sometimes need clarification on what he’s saying – and I’m probably not the only one.

I love how deep the lyrics are – they talk about atheism, evolution, deism, the deity of Christ and the historical controversy over it, and the prosperity gospel.

It’s time we direct our attention towards the Creator / Cats got misconceptions, though / Look, forget about what you heard or what you thought or what they told you / And let’s bring out the right way to get to know Him

Look, I don’t know what they told you but if it don’t match up / With His holy Word, then homie they need to back up / Some they pretend like they get Him they twisting facts up / That’s why we dig in the Scriptures to know the Master / Homie, we have to if we want to get past the only thing we know being what we learned from the pastor / I really hope you’re listening, my listeners, ’cause after / We want to see Him clear like a big screen plasma / Handful of the cats I seen, they don’t really know the Lord / They think my views are extreme, think I’m going overboard / But they ain’t read a page of the place where He’s spoken for Himself in the matters, man that’s what I be quoting for / Some say He don’t exist, nah that don’t even make sense / This earth’s a masterpiece, somebody had to paint this / Forget the Big Bang or evolution and face this / He’s the King of kings and author of all creation / Some say He made it then lets it run like a clock / Nah, He controls every soul and every action on the block / If it happened then He watched and it happens on His watch / No surprise in His eyes, no my God’s never shocked

Wonderful, Counselor, Masterful / This is Jesus Christ, LORD, all capitals / This is why Trip and I trip after the mass appeal / Of people who pigeonhole Jesus as a pacifist, whoa! / A prophet with no power in His plasma / Still we preach against the views that Arius professed to have of Him (look it up!) / Meaning the deifying of Jesus was nothing more than an accident / But the Bible’s the proof that refutes and gives us facts on Him / That He was what His Daddy was, Homousia, the God-Man / Sent to save us all that He loves / And set us free from sin and shut it down like it was Attica / Anyone disbelieving this truth may want to back it up or back it up / Because the Son of Man is coming, that’s what’s up and at His judgment seat is where you will see / His holy wrath is just /But God is love, that don’t mean He’s weak! Hey check His resume / Just ’cause He lets you breath don’t mean He won’t take His breath away

These days in the church, most cats got it twisted / Don’t let them fool you on how we supposed to live this / For instance, some say to come to Christ for riches / Or maybe your blessing, but my question is what is this? / ‘Cause that ain’t the gospel, that if you put your faith in Him / To come to the Savior, and then you’ll rake that paper in? / Face it friends, they made Jesus they holy ATM / Paul would be appalled, this gospel would be disgrace to him / This false gospel strips Him of His flyness / He’s more like your servant and less like His Highness / So please don’t buy it, that idea is absurd / Jesus said the Christian life can be strife and it’s filled with hurt / Look homie I would hate for cats to get that fake stuff /And never know it’s wrong cause they won’t open a page up /I pray we erase the wrong views and embrace the Holy Word that testifies to us about the Savior

A stream-of-consciousness post

I just finished going through a bunch of baby hand-me-downs we’ve received. We have a big pile for 0-3 months, another big pile for 3-6 months, and a modest-sized pile for 6-9 months. I feel very blessed! They are nice clothes, too, and most of them look like new. I texted A.J. that our baby already has more clothes than I do.

I am 31 weeks along (I’ll be 32 weeks on Monday) and I’m going to the doctor every 2 weeks now. I feel bad for writing this on my blog since I haven’t even called my mom to tell her about it yet, but I was measuring 28 cm. instead of 31 when I went in for my checkup on Wednesday. (You’re supposed to measure the same number of centimeters as you are weeks along.) The doctor said not to freak out and it’s probably just the baby’s position, but I’m getting an ultrasound to check his growth when I go back in another 2 weeks.

I’m still working right now, just 2 hours a day at the daycare giving my co-workers breaks. I’ll be done by Christmas because in the state of Florida you have to get training in order to work at a daycare longer than 1 year. My year deadline is up in January, and I don’t want to go through a bunch of classes just so I can work 2-3 extra weeks before the baby’s born. So Lord willing, my daycare career is almost over (hopefully forever!).

It is so strange to be in Florida at this time of year. Thankfully I did visit last year around this same time, and I moved down in January, so I got a taste of the weather around Christmas. It was 70 today and I was listening to Christmas music, and I’m about to go make some hot chocolate and turn on the Christmas lights in the living room, without feeling much incongruity between my festive atmosphere and the warmth outside!

I guess I’m just adjusting to it more easily than I thought I would. After spending 3 winters in Michigan, I’m ready for some milder weather right after Christmas, so if I have to have a mild Christmas too, oh well. Plus it is great to be giving birth to a January or February baby in Florida as opposed to Ohio or Michigan… so much less hassle to go outside!

I went to a secondhand ”family resale” store today to see if they had any good baby things. I think I would have a hard time putting things from there on my newborn. I’m all about hand-me-downs… as long as I know where they came from! (Does that make me a snob?) I did, however, score a $2 maternity skirt with the Target tags still on… yay!

I decided to blog even though I didn’t really have a specific issue to talk about, because I’m having the kind of blogger’s block where I just don’t write because I don’t have anything important to say. I started out blogging more like this, on Xanga, just writing my daily life and things I was thinking about, and people still seemed to like what I was writing.

Then eventually, as I get in the habit of doing it, I’m more able to come up with interesting blogging ideas on the spot.

To wrap up, I think I’m going to share some of the blogs I’ve been enjoying recently. These are relatively new reads (as in over the past several months), and I think you might like them too.

Ali’s African Adventures
The Homespun Heart
Money Saving Mom
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (my friend and matron of honor!)
Through Clouded Glass

Christmas Is Coming!

Though I am sad to be away from my family for the first time at Christmas this year, I am very excited to celebrate for the first time with my husband!

We decorated for Christmas after Thanksgiving last weekend. Here is a picture of our tree. (It now has candy canes on it, too. I love hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane during the Christmas season!)

What have you done for Christmas so far?