LET'S GROW cccccc...OLD TOGETHER!

I saw this unique snow-people picture this past week when I was a little bored and thinking what we could do with all this snow...and wanted to save it for today!  Tomorrow, Brad and I celebrate our 12th Wedding Anniversary and this only seemed fitting to me :)  

What an incredible man God has given me to share my moments with!!!  The times I get off track in my thoughts and lose my thankfulness in my marriage are times when I start to expect things of Brad that I could only receive from my Heavenly Father.  Our walk through life together is to encourage each other into the arms of our Savior.  Our hearts belong to God, but God gave us each other...

TO GET THERE 

(kind of looks like together, doesn't it)  I know sometimes I use some liberties with words, but I really like that concept....together...to get there.  Sometimes, when our girls are running in the church and I am trying to remind them not to run...I tell them they can "walk with a purpose, but not run".  People always laugh at that attempt of mine to get them to obey...but, I think that is what Brad and I do.  We don't have a lot of alone time together as I often wish we would because our purpose a lot of times means we tag-team so many things right now for a big family and an even bigger church family, but we are still a TEAM and we are WALKING WITH PURPOSE...TO GET THERE.

Have you ever taught yourself something...that is strange...really God teaches it, but you are learning it again as you remember something you thought once...OK, I really need to give you an example because trying to describe the example is bombing :)  As Brad and I have been cleaning out the basement for finishing, Brad found a book of poetry I wrote throughout college.  There were times, during that part of my life, when I felt like a sponge for what God was trying to teach me and the way I was able to express it was through my little poems...some of them are absolutely ridiculous and funny now, but some of them gave me reason to consider some things again....like this prayer.  I wrote this before I knew Brad was the match God had for me.  It was a prayer for my spouse and a surrender of my previous romantic notions that somehow a man could be everything to me.

Write my name on his heart, Lord, only if I can follow you

Let his liking not fade, but grow into conviction with a vision of partnership

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, let him only behold me as your masterpiece

And I pray that within this molded clay he find beauty in such forms as...

kindness, tenderness, mercy, forgiveness, graciousness, gentleness...

And let my greatest strength be that weakness that continues to drive me to desperately seek you and need you to save me--

I no longer pray that he complete me; for I trust that you are complete--and in me, 

YOU MAKE ME WHOLE.  

I now pray that together, he and I will fulfill your perfect plan. 

Complete, each of us in you, yet rewarded with this incredible gift of companionship and purpose.

This must be the secret to loyalty and love.

Know what I learned and sometimes am re-learning?....Let God be the one who holds your heart and then, enjoy His magnificent gifts...if you sincerely pray like this...God will answer it!
Brad, Happy Anniversary, My Love! :) LUB :)
Yours for Life, ME