• When The Coronavirus Affects Your Marriage: Remember, Embrace, & Endure

    I remember screaming in the kitchen, storming down the hall to our bedroom, and slamming the door behind me.  We were newlyweds, new homeowners, and had decided to work remotely from home. Bradley wanted to work late at night, using daytime for Home Depot runs and house projects.  I wanted to work normal business hours. We argued a lot. Sometimes I regretted the decision to work from home and wondered if our marriage would survive. Now, here we are, twelve years later, and we—along with millions of other couples—are being forced to eat, sleep, play, work and do everything together 24/7.   By God’s grace we’re no longer screaming in the…

  • Marriage Was Never Supposed to Fill the Empty Spaces

    If you had asked me before my wedding if I thought marriage would meet all my emotional needs, I would have shaken my head no and spouted off all the right answers about who had my heart, who met my needs, and where to run when I was sad.  Jesus is my all.  I know I would have said this.     Then life happened.  When things got hard, I wanted my husband.  When I felt confused, I looked to him to make sense of things.  I could see his face, hear his voice, and feel his comforting arms around me.  He was the perfect replacement. Until he wasn’t around for some…

  • On Marriage, Ten Years In

    When I was in elementary and middle school we often played kickball or capture the flag during recess.  The boys always had the privilege of being captain and choosing teams.  This seemed unfair, but somehow we all agreed to it and stood around anxiously waiting to be chosen.  Lucky for me, I usually got picked near the beginning.  As a self-conscious and very aware young girl with pink glasses and a boyish hair style, I knew that being chosen wasn’t because I was cute. It’s because the boys knew I could run.  Fast. Whether in sports, cooking in the kitchen, folding laundry, walking into the store–I try to move as…

  • 6 Marriage Tips for Seasons of Change or Difficulty

    Our marriage has been characterized by a lot of change.  Moves, career changes, death, the addition of more children–each has brought with it losses and gains.  Navigating through the loss is hard.  And because we are different people we handle change and loss differently. We both need space to walk through challenges in our own way and at our own pace. I have found, though, that it’s easy to put the situation–whatever it might be– ahead of our marriage and before long we drift apart and feel even more alone in our struggles.  I don’t have all the answers on how to maintain a healthy marriage in the midst of change and stress.  These tips are…

  • Our Vacation: Puerto Rico

      Nine years ago, today, I stood in front of a congregation of family and friends and committed my life to my husband.  I love thinking back on that day and everything that made it special: the gift of marrying my best friend, feeling beautiful in my wedding gown, knowing that I was no longer waiting for a husband, people we loved and who loved us who were there to celebrate, and much more. We honeymooned in Belize and had a wonderful time.  Travel is something we both enjoyed before we knew one another, and something we hoped would be a regular part of our married life. Enter children.  Four…

  • Day 23 :: 10 Ways to Bless your husband

    The first person in my sphere of relationships is my husband.  He comes before my children, my parents, my siblings and my friends.  And often he gets the leftovers.  I don’t want this to be the case.  So, I asked him the other day:  “What do I do that blesses you?”  The post you see here is a result of that conversation, just in my own words.   Trust him.  I am constantly having to relinquish what I think is best in order to trust my husband.  We do things differently.  But when I push my way on him I only build a wall between us that causes frustration on…

  • Six Years

    Six years of marriage and it just gets better and better!  There’s no one else I’d rather laugh with or cry with.   I look forward with great eagerness to all that the Lord has in store for our days to come.   I spent some time the other night going through old photos and collected some of my favorites of Bradley and me together through the years.  Enjoy!  Wedding Day Honeymoon in Belize NYC Charleston Reindeer Run Spring in PA My Sailor My Man And, now, we’re off to the beach!  See you next week! 

  • Message On a Bottle

    Whenever I went to the beach as a kid I always looked for bottles as I jumped through the waves.  I thought it would be amazing to find a message tucked away in a bottle.  It never happened, in case you were wondering. This project is really simple:  dress up an old bottle and use it to send messages to people in your home.  It’s not quite as romantic as finding a message in a bottle that has washed up on the shore.  But, it can achieve the same purpose of romance with your spouse, encouragement to your kids, or words of inspiration and welcome to guests. Supplies:-an old bottle…