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{Monday} Musing
{found here}
em·brace/emˈbrās/
synonyms: verb. hug- clasp- include- comprise- enfold- encompass
for some of you, the current season of life is finals. I’m not sure how you can “hug” your tests, but I guarantee you’re going to someday look back & fondly remember finals as the time you went on more spontaneous adventures than actual studying and guzzled more coffee than water. You will one day call yourself hardcore and brag about not sleeping. Psha.
for some of you, the current season of life is a new precious baby. I’m thinking of you, Sasha! You no doubt understand how to “hug” the moments of sleeping Collin in your arms, even though he probably kept you up all night & there are days you don’t know how you will make it.
for almost everyone, spring represents transition.
New jobs, new homes, new schedule, new wardrobe (& white legs), even just new… weather.
Embrace.
Hug. it. in.
I’m hugging in engagement even though it’s so easy to dwell solely the wedding. 19 more days of eating the same meal everyday (Clayton isn’t game for a diet of eggs) & listening to country music non-stop.
What are you hugging in this season?
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Spring has Sprung!
I just realized it is officially the first day of spring! Today is technically defined as spring because the tilt of the Earth’s axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun. The hours of day and night are now equal, and therefore today is an equinox.
When I think of spring I don’t think of the equinox. I think of…
warmer weather, the spring semester, my sister’s April birthday, spring break, shorts & dresses, & flowers blooming.
When it was freezing earlier this winter I remember longing for spring, but had someone not mentioned spring in class, I would have missed this new season.
How often I long for the future and new seasons and then they seamlessly arrive without a second thought. The change of seasons comes without fail. I love that. Regardless of whether or not I remember to usher in spring, it comes. Even if I forget about spring, it comes. It has come.
Seasons come and go. Battles I didn’t think I could endure, I triumphed. God answers prayer even when I don’t recognize it.
I miss out when I don’t slow down and acknowledge these wonders.
I love that God doesn’t need me to remember to usher in Spring. I also love that he lets me see Spring ushered in.
Spring 2012.
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Pouring Out, Recognizing Differences, & Mending Fences
{Marriage 101 Guest Post by Rachel B.}
Hello there! I am Rachel B. & I’ve been married to my sweet hubs {Jesse} for a little over a year now. We are currently shacked up on our little farm in Northeast Ohio. We have two horses, two dogs, and a lot of goofiness roaming around our place {mostly due to hubs…he keeps me from taking life too seriously. Thank you hubs!}. We love Jesus, worshiping Him through song & study, jammin’ to folk rock music & shootin’ guns {yes, I just said that}. I am always up for a good deal, thrift shopping, and all things vintage. Hubs is always up for working in the barn, playing with the dogs, or taking a nap in the grass. That is us in a very small nutshell. That will have to do for now though because we must move on to the deep stuff…
My greatest piece of encouragement for marriage comes from Ephesians 4 (msg) –
Pour yourselves out for one another in acts of love. Alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.
To me this verse has been a great statement of how I can honor my spouse. Daily I strive to seek ways to pour myself out to Jesse. Pouring out love can be respecting him in his dreams & his work, celebrating our relationship with love letters & high fives, or holding my tongue in situations when I feel I’ve been offended. Acts of love range from small to large.
The key to being successful in the large acts of love is to be “…alert at noticing differences…” Lately I have been training myself to seek out how Jesse & I are different. Because, let me tell ya:
MEN & WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT.
However, neither one is better than the other— just different from each other. This means that often I hear and see the very same situation differently than Jesse see and hears it. I may think he is wrong or offensive in his opinion, but really he is just thinking differently than I am. Recognizing the differences between us makes coming to an agreement or a solution much easier and a lot less stressful.
The second part of the passage— the part I struggle with the most— is being “quick at mending fences.” I can be as stubborn as a mule sometimes— especially when I believe I have been hurt. I tend to distance myself from Jesse and let anger fester in my heart. This technique is not a good one to perfect; it’s something I have become all too good at, and by far the least proud of. Shutting out your spouse only creates more anger & bitterness. You are building a wall— brick by brick— between you and your other half. Try your hardest {this will be a challenge & a daily effort} to forgive and say your own apologies.
My prayer for you…
is that you will pour yourself out in love to your spouse selflessly, be aware of your differences, use this awareness to strengthen your relationship, and that you will be rapid in apologizing and forgiving.
As my pastor says “Walk with the King & Be a Blessing.”
With love,
Rachel B.
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Participating in the Great Metaphor
{Marriage 101 Guest Post by Meaghan}
God’s word tells us that marriage is a Big Deal. He uses the marriage metaphor over and over again to describe His own relationship with His Church.
In the Old Testament, God compares Israel to His bride. Sometimes she is beautiful and lovely, but often God pleads with adulterous Israel to return to Him.
In Jeremiah, God reminds His bride Israel of her first days:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness…
Jeremiah 2:2
In Hosea (an entire book about God’s marriage metaphor), God tells Israel:
And it shall be, in that day,
That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
… I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In loving-kindness and mercy…’”
Hosea 2:16, 19-20
In the New Testament, things get even more beautiful. Check out Matthew 25, where Christ compares the Kingdom of Heaven to virgins waiting for the bridegroom (that’s Jesus!) to come for them, or Revelation 19:7-9, where we are invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!
Now, miracle of miracles, when we enter into marriage, we participate in this great metaphor. For those who are called to it, earthly marriage provides us a way to better understand Christ’s relationship with the Church (for those called to singleness, God has other wonderful lessons in store!).
In my short six months of marriage to my husband Greg, I’ve started to see some of these 3 lessons.
1. Marriage lets me work on submission.
I thought I was doing pretty well with submission, and then I got married. To a boy. A fallible, human boy who asks me to do things like put the pot on the back burner (I promptly set it on the front burner) and pray out loud (but I pray in pictures!). We’re still working out what mutual submission looks like, but I know that submission to my husband is making me better able to submit to my Lord. Submitting to a physical person is good practice for submitting to an invisible God!
2. Marriage encourages me to sacrifice for another daily.
Whether it’s getting up early so my husband can make it to class, cheerfully putting down my blogging to help him work, or laying down my desire to be pouty to be forgiving and cheerful, marriage is daily sacrifice for someone else. In each little sacrifice, I conquer my will to do these things because I love Greg.
God’s sacrifice for His bride was ultimate – He gave His own life. These little sacrifices for my husband – and the big ones we know are to come – teach me in small measure about God’s sacrifice for us.
3. Marriage is covenantal love.
Oh, don’t get me started on how amazing and beautiful covenant is. (Focus, Meaghan, focus.) God’s love for His Church is a covenantal love upheld by God Himself, not us. It doesn’t matter how good or bad we’ve been; God loves us.
In our wedding, I promised to love Greg for the rest of our lives, no matter what. Working out this love day by day – seeing how Greg loves me when I am unlovable, and doing the same for him – is giving us the tiniest taste of the incredible love God has for us, His Church.
__
These ideas of comparing my marriage to Greg with this grand, cosmic marriage were, at first, quite overwhelming to me. How could I be stepping in to a role that echoes that of Christ’s Church? I am a fallible, sinful human being not capable of loving Greg properly.
The great, wonderful, amazing thing about being part of the Church is that God gives me mercy and grace to love that way. He gives Greg and me the ability to love one another. He forgives my wrongs and forms me into a person who can be His bride: pure and unblemished. Amen!
As a practical step towards ingesting these realities for yourself, take a trip over to BibleGateway.com. Do a word search for “bride,” “marriage,” “wife,” or “husband.” You’ll have to wade through “So-and-so married so-and-so,” but you’ll also get a great picture of God’s love for His people and a broader picture of marriage. Enjoy!
Meaghan and Greg have been married for a whole six months, and are currently tackling (punching, wrestling, and pleading with) grad school for PhDs in bioengineering and chemistry. Meaghan blogs about faith, graduate school, dance, and kitchen (mis)adventures at xorosxaris.wordpress.com.
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Welcome! and today, a guest post
A special welcome if you’re visiting from Preston’s blog! Feel free to poke around and subscribe on the right if you’d like. I’d be honored.
If you’re a regular reader, hop on over to Preston’s blog to see my post about the beautiful church. Here is an excerpt in the meantime~
Children wander the streets and congregate in the church
parking lot. When I pull my car up four
times a week, the kids flock with an excitement that seems be God saying, “Caroline, here are my children; now, bring
them to Me.” Sometimes I feel like “the mission” is just as much for me
relearning—daily—the Gospel of Christ.I am surrounded by more non-Christians while at church than
I am anytime throughout the week. These
non-Christians in church humble me to the core, but they remind me of what I
have—and the only thing I have—The
Gospel. They remind me that what I
have received changes everything, and they
remind me how desperately I need to spill the Hope of Christ with every
opportunity.Yes, we need to share the Gospel with those who haven’t
heard it, but perhaps the Gospel also should be repeated, shared, and quoted to
us who know Christ just as often. When the Gospel rolls off our lips and
conveyed through our love, it transforms us.
It has transformed me.
I love and treasure the Gospel
more now because of the inexplicable beauty of seeing it hit the ears of those
within my church.
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The Start of 1000 Gifts
One of my goals for 2012 is to slow life down– even just mentally– to take in, embrace, and enjoy the gifts around me. My calmer self might be a gift to those around me too!
When I rush, I hurry to the next thing without fully finishing the now.
When I stress, I lose the moment and allow panic to override joy.
When I worry, I sacrifice the woes of tomorrow for the contentment of today.
I miss out.
With the prompting of Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, I’m going to chronicle the gifts of 2012. My desire is to train my mind and heart to take the gifts of today and immediately thank the Lord for His sweet mercy in allowing me, a feeble, sinning, selfish human being to see a glimpse into His ways as He pours out His love.
Alas, here are the gifts for this week!
1. Clayton drove 3 hours (actually 4 hours after he got lost!) after working 70 hours just to spend less than 24 hours with me. And it’s such a gift that so little time can be so refreshing to the soul.
2. Little children to teach that remind me how simple, powerful, and revolutionary the Gospel is and little children to grow my patience and remind me that my mother poured so much love in to me. Praise God for mothers.
3. Makeup (and coffee) for when I’m tired. Admit it, it’s a gift.
4. My job is to learn about faith—how God’s hand weaves together our limited understanding so that we can know His Heavenly self.
5. A friend that is just as guilty of loving blogs and writing as much as I do and therefore willing to wake up early and go to a writer’s workshop. Check out Nincy’s blog here, and it’ll be a gift for you.
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Hey There
In a matter of days I'm going to marry my college sweetheart Clayton. I'll be the resident chaplain at a girls dormitory this year... which will add a few quirks to our first year of marriage. I've been adopted into Texas culture and I keep Sonic in business. I blog about faith and the struggles with faith. My first name is Jane; I'm Caroline.
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To my single friends, I just posted a cute picture of Clayton and I on Facebook. 10 minutes later we were sitting in my driveway talking about how his stress was overwhelming me and how he was stressed because I was overwhelmed. Dumb. […]
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