9 MONTHS (and) 24 YEARS!!!

So, Lexie and I have been married nine months! Wow, how time flies. It also trudges. Around our third month it felt (to me) like we’d been married much longer. I guess that was because I wasn’t used to being with her 24/7. Now, it seems like we just got married yesterday. What’s up with that?!

I greatly dislike how I get used to things (and then come to expect them). I want to be more like God who can see me love Him and praise Him the same way everyday and still be pleased and enjoy it the next day. According to His Word, He is powerful (and humble) enough to enjoy and treasure my attempt to praise Him every time I praise Him as though it were the first time He heard me praising Him! Isn’t that amazing!? Well, I think it is.

I pray that God will cause me to love as He loves, never growing used to Lexie and always rejoicing in her company and companionship. She is such a wonderful wife, always doing what she can to serve me, that I could easily take her for granted. It’s sad how easy it is to overlook all the good she does and to notice all the ways she messes up or forgets something. I’ve realized that when these things are my focus it’s because I haven’t been doing my devotions regularly (meaning I haven’t been setting aside a specific time of the day regularly to be still and just pray to God and then read and study the Bible). Likewise, I’ve noticed that when I am being still and praying and reading the Bible everyday that it’s easier to see my own shortcomings and personal need for Christ which takes me out of any prideful mindset wherein I might judge Lexie for her shortcomings.

Consequentially, I then see how faithful she is in putting her stuff away in the bathroom, or how she puts my shoes in the closet if she sees them out, or how she daily waters the plants so they don’t die, and the dozen other things she does that I might pass off as things she ought to do because she’s my wife or because she’s a woman (taking her for granted). Thus, seeing these things, I can thank her and bless her for doing them! Then, her response is inconsequential to my thanksgiving, because I’m thanking her out of the overflow of my heart and not because I want her to notice all my work, which has been my motivation in the past. I must fight! I must NOT allow myself to become used to my wife and I will seek God everyday to humble me and open my eyes to see how grateful I should be to have such a precious and amazing woman by my side.

After all, how many goofy guys get such a hot lady to stand by them and play DDR (Dance Dance Revolution)? Answer: not many. LOL.

Therefore, after nine months of living with my best friend, I conclude that as long as I stay close to God, deep in prayer, daily in the Word, and active in our local Church, we will never have want for happiness in our marriage because our happiness will flow to us from God and not vainly from each other to each other. God's glory will be our goal and the continual newness of our marriage our blessing, for God will be continaully making both of us new in Him as we fight for His glory together.

It’s funny how I’ve learned this after nine months when it’s one of the things I vowed to do when I married Lexie. I guess it’s just another one of those things that aligns with the old adage: “Easier said than done,” and I’d like to add: “…indeed impossible but by God.”