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I can still clearly remember watching one of Beth’s Bible study videos and she says something like “If you’re like me…about 5 minutes after I said ‘I do’, I realized I didn’t.”

That was me. I was twenty five and swore I would never get married. But I did. Our fights began on the honeymoon and went downhill from there. But, in the last 12-18 months, my marriage is completely unrecognizable from what it was 6 years ago when I said ‘I do’in absolute ignorance of what I was agreeing to do and to be.

I’m grateful that God doesn’t leave us where we are. If we seek Him, He moves us forward. He grows us. I’m grateful that I can look at my husband with fresh eyes. I’m grateful that I am able to love him because he is not who he was and, praise God, I am not who I was.

Friendship

After 28 years of marriage, I still get a thrill when I see him.

I have often said that my Chris is not who I would have picked, if you had asked me who I should marry. And yet, at age 20, I found myself eagerly anticipating marrying him. GOD KNEW! He knew I needed my Chris so badly. We have really not faced trials with one another, but with other things and stuff of life. And we stand so very strong together.

He makes me laugh like no body else could. He brings coffee to me every single morning in bed. When I’m sick, he takes care of me. If I wanted to go to a weekend conference, he is awesome with the kids. He is a great daddy—I have never given him advice on how to help with the kids. He trusts me to pray for him. He says that nobody knows who he is at church unless I am with him (which is not entirely true). Apparently, people act like he’s a visitor all the time when I’m not there. We just belong together. I’m so glad God gave me my Chris. So very…

I hope that y’all have a great time at the FOM. I live in Black Mountain, NC and Autumn is a wonderful time for y’all to be here. If you have any free time, we have a great little(very) downtown with cute shops and yummy restaurants. Email me if you need some suggestions. God Bless

I want to jump in on the FOP. The Lord gets all the Praise and the Glory for taking two people with bagggagggge and transforming their hearts. That is what He did for my husband Matt and I. He is an amazing, restoring, redeeming, corrective God filled with much Grace and a wonderful sense of humor. I am so grateful that He is thrilled that we will always be His work in progress. I never want to come to a place where I think I can stand on my own, least I fall flat on my face. I am in love with Jesus and I want that to be on going and more in depth as I walk with him. It brings healing and liberty and healthyness and relieves the burden from my man, as he was never meant to meet those needs. It frees us up to be a blessing to each other, our children and our friends.

My husband and I just celebrated 25 years of marriage and like you, Sophie, it hasn’t always been a bed of roses. But like I tell anyone who will listen, if you can make it through the valleys you are ALWAYS blessed with a new closeness and understanding when you are on the other side of that difficult time. God is so good and if we wouldn’t be so stubborn and would just DO WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS (duh!!) things would be much easier. By the way, I highly recommend the movie Fireproof…it’s wonderful and has some terrific ideas on how we should treat our spouses.

We just celebrated 9 year of marital-ness yesterday. For the first time, I understand fully when people say…it’s felt every bit of those years plus some…but I would marry him again. It has been an extremely hard 9 years. We had dated for 5 years prior…knew each other very well…and never anticipated the issues that have come up. Add on top of that the life circumstances we’ve faced that were completely out of our control…and Houston, we have a problem! Thankfully, neither of us have wanted to quit at the same time. That is God’s grace in physical form right there. I think too that I’ve had to learn that marriage isn’t about the feeling every day. Some days it’s the mere fact that I made the commitment to the Lord. Now, I believe fully that we are and will be restored. Just that in those hard moments you have to take the focus off the other person and really ask yourself…what about the belief in Jesus I have and the commitment I have made to Him,not just my spouse. I have really soaked up some Beth Moore teaching on marriage…We’re coming out of a hard season…and we’re looking to Jesus. And we both know that when we focus on ourselves with Jesus and as a couple with Jesus…then we’re going to be victorious. We are already experiencing the victory.

Thank you Sophie for sharing these thoughts. I have a friend that is in a dire position in her marriage right now. I have forwarded her your comments from awhile back and said, see…Christians face these issues every day. We don’t have to get specific with our friends and prayer partners — but we all experience difficulties and we can pray each through. You have blessed many by sharing your experience.

GREAT insights, y’all - thanks so much for sharing!

We will celebrate 14 years of marriage next month. I love my husband but we too have had our times of trials and tests. A strong commitment to each other has gotten us through.
I am so thankful for the times we have had. We have recently been able to minister to other couples about our experiences. God has his hand in everything.

Thanks for being real Sophie. Marriage can be tough and sometimes the toughest part is admitting that its not perfect. We’ve been married nearly 29 years and I’ve had the same thoughts as you from time to time. We are both strongly committed to the marriage. I must say that what I love the most is his integrity of character and his calm demeanor.

I’m most thankful for the second chance we have together, and that he woos me every day. Mr Lemon is the best image of Christ toward His bride that I have ever seen, and I have seen the insides of many marriages through my years of ministry. Sometimes I still wonder if I’m going to wake up and it was all a lovely dream.