I want you to know...

Several months ago Justin and I talked to our church about joining with 2 other couples and teaching a young married Sunday School class. One of the many thoughts that we all had was that it would be nice to have a group of people that are in our age group/walk of life to do life with.  

Little did I know that so soon after our group started meeting that we would be going through such a huge loss. On Monday, December 23rd, a young wife/mother lost her life. I am still in shock about this and I can only imagine what her husband is going through. 

The loss of this precious life has had me thinking. First of all I have been telling people how much I love them. If for some reason God wants to take me to heaven at a moments notice, I want everyone that I love to know that I loved them. 

Second, I have been thinking about salvation. There are people in my life that I am always praying for, that they will find the truth about God and his son Jesus. That they will realize that the only way to get to heaven is to have a relationship with God. I used to use the term "saved", and while that is still a valid term, I feel like it should be explained in a different way. For example I could say I was "saved" at age 14, then go on and live my life however I please, but of course I would say I am "saved" and that I know that I am going to heaven. I think that there are a lot of people who feel this way.

A good way to think about it is like this: Once I met the band News Boys (christian music band). I even got to drive them around town! That was when I was in high school. Currently I listen to some of their songs on the radio and of course I tell people about the time I got to drive them around town. So with that being said, does that mean I am friends with them? Do you think if I called them up they would verify that yes indeed they had met me back in my high school days? My guess is that they would not even remember. You see if I don't continue to have a relationship with them, why would they have any reason to remember meeting me? 

In my opinion, our relationship with God is the same way. If I am not building a relationship with him. Learning about him, telling others about him, talking to him through prayer, reading the Bible, then why should He remember me the time back in the day when I asked him to save me, to be my heavenly father? 

This is just something to ponder. If you haven't started a relationship with God then now is the time. You never know when your last breath will be, so make the most of each moment that you have. If you have any question about God, salvation or a relationship with God, please leave a comment and way to reach you. I would be happy to talk to you about it.

Till death do us part...

Today makes 7 years ago I said "I do" to an amazing man! I don't know what life would be like with out my wonderful husband Justin, but I do know that it would not be good.

I think so many people have such a distorted few of what marriage should be like. They see these romantic movies or read novels with amazingly written love stories in them and they think that is how their marriage should be. But the truth is that life is not a movie or a novel. We are all, by nature, selfish people.

Justin and I do not have a perfect marriage. We have had arguments, we have shed tears. I can even remember a time when I was so mad, I put Ian in the car and just drove for a while. I didn't know what I planned to do but I knew I didn't want to be in the same house as my husband. So, how did we get past these moments? Well here are the three things that I feel like have played the biggest part in keeping us together.

1. God. Justin and I both have a relationship with God and put God first. Knowing that the Bible only gives a few justified reasons for divorce, we have pushed through those hard times and have not given up.

2. The 5 Love Languages. This book has very much saved our marriage. I had no clue that there were different ways people show love until we read it. My love language is gifts and words of affirmation and Justin's is acts of service and quality time.  There are times when we are both right on top of it. I'm doing laundry, cleaning house and making dinner. Justin gets me flowers, leaves notes and tells me I'm beautiful. Then there are other times when we have just got used to the way things are going. Like recently, Justin has been doing the laundry and I just decided to let him. I hate laundry. But that is no excuse to stop filling Justin's love tank. We like to have a talk every now and then and ask each other how our "love tanks" are doing. I'm actually considering re-reading the book so I can get some more ideas on how to speak Justin's love language.

3. Communication. I think everyone can agree that this is a biggie! It is so difficult sometimes because I want Justin to just be able to read my mind and know what I want or know how I'm feeling. But he can not. And I can't read his either. They won't know what you don't tell them.

Now, you might be thinking that I have been focusing on the bad parts of marriage. But friends, these bad times, once worked through have led to the most beautiful of times, times where we lay on the bed and laugh, times where we cry. It really is wonderful and I couldn't imagine life with out my husband, good times and bad times. He is my earthly rock (God is my heavenly rock).

Here is a song we had sung at our wedding. I believe with all my heart that our story is the second greatest story ever told (the song says the greatest story, but we can't really compete with God loving us so much that he gave his son for us)! Happy Anniversary baby! I love you and respect you so much!

Snow days...

Ian's school was canceled both yesterday and today due to bad weather. I thought it pretty funny that it was canceled yesterday because there was nothing in the morning. But they closed it in preparation, so that was nice. It was super cold and I didn't want to get out anyways. :) 

It started yesterday, the sleet and freezing rain. But then this morning, well we woke up to a winder wonderland! The boys of course wanted to go outside. I didn't want to at first, but my friend Tara kind of talked me into it. We were out there all of 5 minutes before the boys got too cold and headed back inside! Which I was fine with. We came inside and Ian and I enjoyed some hot chocolate, which is new. They haven't wanted hot chocolate in the past! 

We were out there long enough to get some good pictures though! Enjoy our winter wonderland.