We’ve been married a year!  Woohoo.  Its has been… crazy.  We’ve lived in 3 states and in 4 houses.  We’ve moved 3 times.  We spent a good portion of the year doing LDI with very unpredictable schedules.  Oh yah, and we’re ready to have a baby.  And boy has God been good to us!  And oh boy do I love my wife… even more so today than a year ago!!!

Anyway, my wonderful wife Kaelin and I were chatting on one of our walks (We walk daily) about what we’ve learned in this first year.  Here’s what we came up with:

1)  Get rid of your TV and talk
We don’t have a TV at the moment and haven’t had one this year.  Nothing against TV specifically, but we never have time.  We spend a lot of our free time talking.  Communication is HUGE, especially in this first year where we’re spending a lot of time exploring each other and figuring each other out.  Talk it up!!!

Men, you should be exploring your wives above all else!!!  Talk to her.  Learn more about her.  Treasure her.

2) Be prepared to sacrifice
Love is about sacrifice and service.  Love can be really hard.  If you see love as something that benefits you, instead of something you give selflessly… then don’t get married.  Before you get married you might have a lot of hobbies (sports, shows you watch, things you do).  Give them up.  Once you are a couple, then decide what you will do together and individually.  You may pick up many of your hobbies again; or, if they are hurtful to your marriage, you’ll let them die.  If you come to the table with demands of what you “need” to spend your time doing, you aren’t ready for this kind of commitment.

Our culture defines “love” as something we get to fill a need, like food or air.  “Love is all you need”.  That is just not the case.  We all should first learn what “love” really is by looking at how God loves us.  Without an understanding of how Jesus acted to show his love and without a loving relationship with Jesus, I’m just not sure anyone can really understand what sacrificial love means.

3)  Set your relationship on something bigger than yourselves (Jesus)
If the purpose of your relationship is to fulfill your needs or to fix/help/fulfill the other person, you will experience failure at some point because we are all imperfect.

We made sure God was at the center of our relationship and the purpose of our marriage.  The purpose of our marriage is to love God through loving each other, our family, and other people.  God is love and God is faithful; with our minds eye set on him and not our self-centered needs, we always are in the right perspective.  This makes it SO much easier when we enter into conflict or when we discuss our relationship, as we have a perfect, external barometer with which to guide ourselves and judge ourselves against.  Its not about what we think is right, its what God has said is right.  Instead of fighting to get our needs met, we fight to help each other love God.