Seeking a Sponsor

This is about marriage. No, maybe more about divorce.

I hate divorce. Hate it and everything it stands for, no, against. Now hear me, because I'm not saying I hate people who are divorced or will be divorced.  As a mentor of mine always said, "Grace to you."...the same Grace that is to me. But divorce in itself, I hate.

Divorce is not patient, divorce is not kind. Divorce involves envy, it's boastful and proud. It dishonors many and is self-seeking. It's filled with anger, keeping a thorough record of wrongs.  Divorce delights in evil and disregards the truth. It never protects, never trusts, never hopes, and most certainly does not persevere. 

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's the opposite of what you hear at almost every wedding. The antonym of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. What love is not, divorce is. 

Pretty disturbingly to me, I've had multiple people, in just the last couple months, well-meaningfully say, "If Doug (my husband) were ever to start drinking again, I'd support you leaving him."

How disappointing. Support my leaving him? What about support my loving him? Who will help me love him if Lord forbid my beloved ever did fall back into addiction, darkness, despair? Who will pray with me for him, encourage him with me, and serve him with love in his ultimate "for worse"? Who will support me in that?

Because if you support my leaving him when he stumbles, then the enemy not only has a hold on him, but our marriage also. You'd be supporting the enemy, not me, not him, definitely not our marriage. And what if I were the one doing the stumbling? What then?

I need someone to hold our marriage accountable, no matter what comes our way. To remind us of 1 Corinthians 13 love. To shove our own vows in our face, our vows of forgiveness and prayerfulness. Someone who doesn't accept the lie of put the "me" before the "us". (Because that's not what I signed up for, that's not what I agreed to.) I made a deal, a promise, a covenant, and I need some back-up, a witness in that, to call me out, without fear of offense. I need a sponsor. That's who I need and that's what our marriage needs. And I'm hopeful you're already out there.

Don't just sit through weddings, post some pictures, and wish em well.
Sponsor a marriage.

Singing

We celebrated our son's tank engine, third birthday over the weekend. I'll admit I get a little into in my kids' themes, but I love it because they love it. It's a chance to single out each kid, ask them what their heart desires, and (work my butt off to) magically fulfill their high hopes. One day a year just for them.

As I was prepping early morning for the party, on top of lists running in my head, I kept thinking on the tradition of singing over birthday individuals, little or grown, each year. It serves to celebrate and honor the person; it's the culmination of the birthday party! But if you really think about it, it's kind of strange having everyone sing a song in unison surrounding a single person. Not that strange though, because God does exactly the same with us. The Bible tells us,

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)

God rejoices over you with singing, just like we all do to our kids on their birthdays. With smiling, taking delight in their every move, being physically next to them, and, if even for just a moment, putting everything else aside to simply sing.

He sings! Over you. To you. For you. I wish I could really grasp how incredible that is.


Every year, for everyone we know, we sing. Every second, for those He knows, God sings.

I love that when we sang to my son, he sang right along, with a "Happy Birthday to me" version. With God we are called to sing-along as well, not to ourselves and our own glory, but straight back to him. "Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jersusalem." (Zephaniah 3:14)

Insert your name above and sing. Sing with Him. Sing back to Him.

  Sing because He's singing over you!

Salt

Sometimes I really am searching for my lost shaker of salt... not for my margaritas, I'm out of that phase of life now. But honestly lacking in spiritual saltiness.

Jesus gave his disciples (myself included) the job title of "salt of the earth". (Matt 5:13) 

And Paul told the Colossian church to be sure their conversations were "seasoned with salt". (Col 4:6)

And so I've known salt to be a good thing, on fries and in life, but never really understood what exactly this spirtual salt stood for. So I did some research and looked into the uses of salt (call me a dork, it's cool)...what I found truly moved me, encouraged me, and convicted me to USE and BE salt.

4 Main Uses of Salt

• Enhances 
• Salt enhances the flavor of what already is; it brings out the best in something.
• Cleanses
• Salt lifts stains and dirt, removing residue and leaving it much cleaner than it was found. 
• Preserves 
• Salt preserves things in a state it is able to remain. 
• Heals
• Salt heals wounds and calms irritation. 

Let your words, actions, and entire being enhance, cleanse, preserve, and heal those around you. 

True salt. 

Taking Back Marriage

Last Valentine's Day, I realized that the holiday may be bound to disappoint. I didn't mean to put a damper on the day, but truthfully, we are just imperfect people. We try to love and be loved, but God loves us more than anyone ever could. And our understanding of love and our ability to love others needs to stem from THAT relationship above all else. With that being said, my husband booked us a couple's cooking class on Valentine's Day this year (after some serious hinting on my part)! So I'm looking forward to Heart Day more than usual. But I am so thankful for the gift God has given me in my husband. My second love, next to the Lord. Doug knows he's the #2 seed, and he's glad for it. He'd say the same about my standing as well. Because by understanding God and our love-relationship with Him first, we are able to better live out our marriage, attempting to mirror the Love God has shown to us. Marriage is the closest glimpse we'll receive on Earth, person-to-person, to the kind of relationship God has always desired between us and Himself. Marriage is just a taste of what's to come. And God knew what He was doing when He created it; it was a gift for us, His beloved children.

When I think about all of that, I get pumped up about marriage! It's something Doug and I have always taken very seriously, but also joyfully, purposefully, prayerfully. And we've been blessed with influences that have taught us even more how significant marriage is, and how our marriage, specifically, can be significant. We put time aside each week just to reflect, plan, and pray for our marriage. We've committed to putting at least one weekend aside each year to reconnect and refresh our marriage. Even still, our marriage isn't perfect because it's a combining of two imperfect people, but we can press towards the goal of reflecting God's love in our marriage, and we really try to. So in a world that feels like it's perfectly OK to take back marriage like you would take back an ugly sweater, I am taking back marriage to what it was originally intended to be: a blessing that is to be taken seriously. Ephesians 5 gives us a beautiful example of what marriage was created to look like, some may see it as old-fashioned or unbalanced, but that's only because they don't understand the love-respect relationship that we're aiming to emulate, that of Christ and ourselves! Pauls summarizes his whole explanation of marriage by saying "So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." (Ephesians 5:33)  When someones loves you like he loves himself, it pretty easy to respectfully love him back. And that's an awesome place to start!

I have to say, it's been pretty upsetting to me seeing people my age, reaching their mid-twenties, and their reactions to marriage. I've seen a lot of statuses saying things along the lines of  "If I see one more engagement update I'm going to throw up!" or "I don't care that you are getting married-shut up!" Or on the other hand, peers of mine who are already on their way to or finalizing a divorce publicly, and people "liking" and cheering them along, like they just achieved something? I don't understand and I won't accept this way of thinking. It's a misunderstanding, a big lie. Whether you're married or not, it's not OK, and you don't have to play along with it. Will you take back marriage with me? What it was intended to be, what it stands for, what it could be. Significant. Joyful. Committed. Celebrated.

Think on love this Valentine's Day: the One who loved you first, and maybe the one who loved you second. <3 "..a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."
Genesis 2:24

True Love

My husband isn't much into Valentine's Day. I'm sorry to say he is indeed one of those downers who calls it a corporate-invented holiday that forces people to buy stuff. Whether there is truth to that or not, Valentine's Day no doubt makes us think about love. Who we love, why we love them, maybe our lacking in the love department... but I've been reminded this week who loved us first.

(that cloud is legit - amazes me every time!)

The Bible tells us that God is Love. Not only is He Himself love, but He has expressed it to us in it's truest form and commands us to do likewise. Jesus said, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:12-13) And this directive is not as difficult when you know wholeheartedly that the Creator of the Universe loved you first: "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

Being the dork I am, let's pretend we're back in English class. If I was asked to identify the main theme of the entire Bible, I would confidently answer with one word: LOVE. One little verse sums up not only the Bible, but love, life, and everything in between for me...

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us"  

(1 John 3:16a)

If you walk into Hallmark this week (which my husband probably will not do  haha), you can clearly see how obsessed our world is with love. We LOVE love, but do we really live love in our day-to-day? 

Sometimes it's hard for me to grasp that as much as I love my husband, or even as much as I love my children, God loves them so much more. I could never love them as much as He does, no matter how much I tried!  

This Valentine's Day we are bound to be disappointed by someone. Now I don't say that to be a V-day downer like Doug, but to remember we are just people. The hard truth is we can not love as well as the One who is Love. And so our relationship with Him needs to be our most treasured relationship, the only one we put our complete trust in. 

HE. LOVES. ME.  It's taken me awhile to be able to confidently say those three words and I don't think I'll ever really get it or understand why .. but Love is who God is, and He doesn't contradict Himself. 

Remember your not-so-secret admirer this Valentine's Day 

and show Him some love back 

(listen and meditate on these awesome lyrics with me)

Booing Jesus

 Christianity sucks. 

Says who? Close to 97 percent of my generation does!

I have heard and read this statistic multiple times - just 3 percent of America's young people have a positive view of Christianity/Jesus. This is a pretty startling and upsetting statistic for me to see about my own generation, but I get it. There are all sorts of explanations for why the youth of America has decided to boo Jesus, but unfortunately, it mostly comes down to the fact that society equates Christians with Christianity.

Every human being, Christians very much included, struggle with a constant battle of choosing good or evil, grace or judgement, love or hatred every day. Again, Christians are not an exception here, but the good news is we have a lifeline. The lifeline is Jesus - who is overflowing with goodness, grace, and love. And the key to overcoming the struggle is to lean on Him to pull you out.

Now society anticipates that Christians should act like Jesus, represent His brand, be a walking billboard, and the like. "That guy says he follows Jesus, and he just did that?! Then I don't like him or this Jesus guy he follows." I can imagine thousands of variations of that idea in an attempt to justify a negative view of Christianity/Jesus. But society must see the reality that Christians are not perfect, nor should we ever claim to be, but Jesus was! (And still is.)

Don't get me wrong, this is not to give Christians a free pass to make a mess of things. I think a huge problem with Christians ( I put myself in this category too), is that the God we KNOW is not always the God we SHOW. We know we are only able to claim the title of being "Christians" through God's forgiveness, love, and kindness. He has extended such goodness to us, that the least we can do is share it with others, but we don't always succeed in doing that. It is far too easy to stay within our comfortable church walls sometimes, letting society only see/hear about what some Christians are up to on the news. And as a journalism student, I know a producer will happily choose a corrupt, pin- him-as-a-hypocrite type story over some amazing act of goodwill or mercy that occurred that day. Yet as Christians, we have the ability to overcome these negative views by living out a radical, Jesus kind of love-filled life. And as a society, we refrain from holding Christians to an impossible standard of perfection.

Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, admits he is far from perfect, and yet that didn't stop him from being perhaps the all-time best spreader of Christianity.

He says, "I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Jesus Christ, is calling us." (Phillipians 3: 12-14)


As a fellow sinner and spreader of the Good News, I similarly declare, " I am not perfect, nor will I ever be, but that doesn't stop me from striving to live more like Jesus. I have completely let go of my past, because God let go of it first. And now I can look to my future, here on earth and in heaven, with the confidence that I am forgiven and loved."


Christians aren't perfect - but Jesus is. We can try to be advertisements for Him, but we can only do so much, especially if people can't see past our imperfections. Still, we should strive daily to let the God we know be the God we show to the world. But in the end, the best spokesperson for Jesus is Jesus himself and you'll only find the real truth about Him in His Word (the Bible). So maybe my generation just needs to do some good old reading and less news watching, but in the meantime, I'll keep doing what I can to share the Truth and pray that society stops booing Jesus, because no matter what you do, He will never boo you.


"... my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God." (Acts 20:24)

Love = You > Me

1 Corinthians 13... "The Love Poem" we've all heard at least in a romantic comedy, if not at 9 out of 10 church weddings. I have to admit we used it at ours too, but first I went to our pastor and said, "Do you think 1 Corinthians 13 is too overdone?" Like it was a once-catchy, now-dreaded song on the radio or something (i.e. - my daughter's favorite "I Gotta Feeling") But he simply said, "I don't think scripture can ever be overdone."

And just this week I heard the chapter once again, but heard it in a much more personal, practical, and applicable way. The first line says, "If I speak in the languages of men or of angels, but do not have LOVE, I am only a resounding gong or clanging symbol." In other words, even if I am able to make a clear, articulate message, but am not combining it with love, it's just a bunch of noise! I quickly thought of this blog. Amazingly, my little informal blog that I started to keep my long-distance family in the loop has been read by people across the world!? People in places like Russia, Germany, and even Cambodia have come across this page, but even more amazingly God's message has reached old classmates, fellow moms, and doubting family members and friends. I've somehow managed to articulate myself in a way that is clear enough for people to understand... and that is GOOD, but where is the love? (oh no, not more Black Eyed Peas  lol)

Paul said it... without LOVE this blog (and anything else) is a bunch of noisy nothing. And according to Jesus, sincere love, God-like love, is putting YOU before ME or choosing to put others needs ahead of your own. But how can a dinky blog do that? How can I add a LOVE button? "Take time to pray for and listen to those reading what you have to say," is what came to me. How simple! But how do I do that with a medium that is usually used to talk about me, Me, ME. Thankfully, I have a tech-savy hubby who actually made this happen!

So... you'll notice there is a Prayer/Discussion tab and a Chat tab at the top of the site now. You can add prayer requests (general, specific, little, big, anonymous, etc) that I pledge to put serious time aside for. And other readers can also pray for you and your need or praise with you in your victory. We can also have open discussions about faith, fitness, and food (my favs). Or, if you'd like to personally talk to me with a request, comment, question, encouraging word :)  then you can do that with the Chat with Mumby tab, which only I can see. So hopefully this can be not only an outlet for me and my thoughts, but also a personal place of encouragement and LOVE for you!

Cutting Weight vs. Putting Some On

So my husband is a wrestler... not Stone Cold Steve Austin style, but a real, full-time freestyle wrestler. The U.S. Open kicks off in Cleveland tomorrow. This is an awesome opportunity for my husband and I am so incredibly proud of his hard work, but with wrestling comes weight cutting.

Now I grew up in a wrestling family. I watched my brother wrestle from age 6 into high school, my dad and his brother both wrestled, and now my husband is at the highest competing level of the sport. I'm no stranger to it and I enjoy it. I even sympathize, schedule accordingly, and walk around on eggshells during competition weeks because my husband usually has to drop anywhere from 15 to 25 lbs. Any other time this is all fine for me ... BUT NOT WHEN I'M PREGNANT!

Before his last competition I was dying for a cookie or just something sweet, but we keep those temptations out of the house when its weight cutting time. So I gently told him I was craving something sweet and would go get it on my own and not eat it in front of him if he would just watch our daughter for a bit. He agreed and I thought to myself what a sweet, understanding, dehydrated husband I have ! <3

So I went to the grocery store bakery and found something beyond my greatest expectations... a soft chocolate chip cookie practically the size of my hand covered in vanilla frosting with sprinkles! Jackpot. The only downside was you could only buy them in packages of five... but I excitedly bought them anyway and retreated to my car where I downed one in the parking lot ( which btw can really make you feel like you have issues, but at least I can blame them on my husband).  So after getting back home I wiped off the crumbs from my jacket and tucked the rest of the package into the pantry. Well wouldn't you know, seconds later my husband spots them with his hawk eyes or hound nose or something and bursts into a fit.

"What is this?? You brought them into the house?!? There's like five of them here! You can't be bringing in five freakin cookies like this!"

"But babe, I said I wouldn't eat them in front of you and I'd get them myself. That was the deal," I said calmly.

"Frosting???? They have frosting!?! Well, now I'm gonna have to have one!" he yelled with sincerity.

Thankfully we all compromised by splitting one between him and my daughter, while I hide the package somewhere else.

But now it's a competition week again... and my husband is at "work" at 8 pm relieving himself of some lbs. Before he left I asked very nicely, "Would you be mad if I asked you to bring back some Rita's?" After all, I had to stay home with our daughter who is in bed and thought I'd give my craving a try.

Let's just say it ended with a bunch of question marks and exclamation points again. But before he walked out the door, I got the last word...

"I'm pregnant with your child, and you're just hungry!!"  

(By the way, I am so dead when he finally gets home tonight 

and reads this. I love you, babe!)

God KNOWS You

"Jesus Loves You" is a phrase popularized by bumper stickers, songs, t-shirts and the like. Another poster-worthy slogan is from John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son..."

And while this is so very true, it's important to realize that He doesn't just love you with a general, overlying kind of love. He loves the "the world", but He loves it person by person by person (and I could keep going with that approximately 6.8 billion times). And because His love is individual, it comes with intimacy. Not just for you to have with the Creator of the Universe, but for Him with you as well.

How awesome is it that God makes it perfectly clear that he knows who we are? How much easier is it to have a relationship with someone who knows everything about you versus a stranger? God says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Go ahead and grab a thesaurus and look up the word KNOW. According to Websters, if God "knows" you, then these things are also true:

• God appreciates you.
• God comprehends what you are going through.
• God distinguishes you from everyone else.
• God grasps who you really are.
• God notices you!

All of these synonyms for the word know just blow my mind because it shows exactly how God loves "the world " and that is very, very personally.

Even if you don't know God right now, thank Him for taking the time to KNOW YOU. After all, relationships can only happen if someone does the initiating ( for example, my now husband decided to message me on Facebook one day LOL). But you can be glad that the awkard "get to know you"  phase has already been done for you!

Galatians 4:9 says "Now that you know God - or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to your previous ways?" Knowing that God really knows you should be enough to blow you away and change your life. It's a great place to start and an amazing thing to be reminded of.