Marriage is Important

We took part in an amazing marriage conference this past weekend and I’m just bursting at the seams to share some of what we learned. In our culture we don’t hear enough how important marriage is and it’s all too easy to slowly slip away into taking our spouses for granted and waaaay underappreciating the gift God has given us in our mate. I don’t know how I’m going to sum up everything I want to say!

Here are three essentials to a thriving marriage:
(taken from our Weekend to Remember workbooks)

I. The habit of extravagant love
...is reflecting the love of God.
It’s a choice not a feeling.
II. The habit of generous forgiveness
...is offered quickly, applied freely, and expressed graciously.
III. The habit of enthusiastic encouragement
...is openly affirming your spouse (in front of others), avoiding critical words, and maintaining a positive attitude, even in hard times.

One of the main things I took away from the weekend was the powerful encouragement that no matter how “far gone” you think or feel your marriage may be, there is always a chance to turn it around. There’s history there, and it’s always easier to work it out with the person you’re already with than go start from scratch with someone else! J. Paul Getty, one of the first people to be worth more than $1 billion, is quoted as saying, “I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just on lasting marital success.” There’s something unexplainably special about lifelong companionship, and let’s not buy in to our culture’s lie that it’s more fulfilling to move onto something better. Seek out biblically-based advice, make some changes, and hang in there!

One thing I’d totally recommend is re-reciting marriage vows to each other. I was totally skeptical of this at first, but it turned out to be really special! And in a room with over 100 other couples it wouldn’t seem like the most intimate of settings (and in general it was somehow just hard to keep a straight face thinking about how silly we must look staring so *deeply* into each others' eyes)...but it was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for me. The vows mean so much more to me than they did even just over one and a half years ago when we first promised them and it's so fascinating to think how a relationship grows over time.

Let's make it a priority to encourage those around us to develop thriving marriages and not just settle with "living together in isolation from each other." I love the idea that our spouse reflects God's love, forgiveness, encouragement more intensely than anyone else. What a great design God has for us in realizing we need companionship and providing us with such a rich solution!

Good Floaties

Who here has ever had bubble tea? I tried it for the first time while out shopping with my sister one day in Edmonton last month. It looks unusual, but don't let the odd black things fool you-! The tapioca "bubbles" add a really nice element to any otherwise ordinary beverage--they are chewy and have a mild flavour (maybe it sounds weird but even skeptical me came around!). What my sister said is true: once you've had bubble tea every other drink is just boring! I really had a hankering for it the other day and happened to find the tapioca pearls in the store to make our own homemade version. All we're missing are the big straws! Yummmmmm.

Let's Not Forget...

...how much it tends to wear one down to constantly have to ask for drinks with no ice, and then debate if it should be sent back when it comes with ice.

...actually noticing and caring when a larger room has doors open on both ends when one feels a bit cold and naturally concluding there must be a draft (especially when said person even used to laugh at this when she first lived in Germany).

Circumstances that prompted both these realizations came about yesterday, right after I had written about RCS (reverse culture shock) and thought I had pretty much ranted about everything that was getting to me. Goes to show one can never be too careful, sheesh. And on to another day we go!

She's a Keeper

At nine and a half months she's growing strong! Seven teeth, 15 pounds and over a thousand diapers later we still find our little Caitlinbug one of God's funnest creations!

Confession

Well I have to admit that I don't have the greatest reason for the lack of inspiration of late. I haven't been overly busy or too bored or unstimulated to have good enough material...I guess I'll just file this one under reverse culture shock (RCS). Now that's a riot in and of itself.

The problem with RCS is that it's so unexpected and seemingly untraceable. I don't mean unexpected like that no one knows about it--trust me, we've been well educated. I mean it just kills me what things actually get to me...when I finally figure out that it's that that's been bothering me.

Stupid things even get to me. And when I say "get to me" I also don't mean in an incredibly bad way, but even the fact that it makes me notice it or think about it, yeah it "gets to me." Like the other day we were distracted as we were stopped at a red light and who knows how long it was green before we looked up to notice it ourselves. No honk. Nothing from behind. In Dresden if the light was about to turn green and you hadn't started moving you got a *nice* reminder. Yeah, it annoyed the heck out of us then. But I've noticed it's different here and so technically it's gotten to me.

It's all the little things: which brand of juice to buy, where to find the tuna, scanning the dairy section for whole milk for five minutes without any luck, driving a huge truck, (not to mention just driving everywhere), not necessarily shaking hands upon meeting someone, how to be a mom in America, grocery carts with only two swiveling wheels, tax, not sorting the garbage, watching LOST as it aired, buying $100 of groceries at once, only regular bread, 30 varieties of peanut butter, not having to calculate the time difference when I call my family in Canada...

I actually asked someone yesterday if I could send something down to Oklahoma with them when they went since I have friends who live there. I said, "Yeah, maybe you could just drop it in the mail when you get there," and only after I said it realized that I am indeed now in the U.S. of A. too and it will cost no more for me to send it from here than if they sent it from there. Doh. Too used to being all the way over there. Now I'm aware. Thanks.

I'll let you know when this RCS stops nibbling away at my sanity.