Atmosphere
The atmosphere of your home is everything!! When I think about atmosphere in the natural, I think about candles lit, music playing, a clean home, and flowers on the table! I think we all want our home to be welcoming! It's part of growing up, having your own place, and creating a life you want. In marriage we have to create that life by what we do and what we make of the place we call home.
Values
My husband and I have a life we love! We have had to create it, cultivate it, be flexible to change when necessary, and to reassess it at times! Starting with the big wedding day, we had dreamed before our marriage, but once married, we sat down and wrote out our values. We discussed them before marriage, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, and are in the world of marriage, you start to see there are things you may not have addressed before. We had to look at what we would do each week, how we would steward our money, how we would raise the girls, and so on.
The Rubber Meets The Road
I'm sure you have all heard the expression, "Where the rubber meets the Road," but when life meets your ideas, it may be harder to accomplish than you first thought. You see it in real glasses, instead of rose colored ones. We had to sit down again and again to see where we were realistically, and with where we wanted to be. We had to drive it out and as we hit some speed bumps, some pot holes, and even got a flat tire or two. It wasn't easy for sure. We were so in love, but we had to learn to create a life we loved and that took work.
Work
Finding a way to balance our lives with all we had going on took work. We had to learn each other, how best to love and discipline our girls, Brents job, church, and a new business in our first year. Then I had to have a surgery, this wasn't in the plans at the time, but we felt it would help me with a prior accident I had had years before. It was a lot of work to create a life we loved while dealing with things a lot of newly weds don't have to deal with. I'm sure you have a story as well. I think telling our stories helps others to feel they are not alone in what they may be going through.
How To Live
What are your values? Do you have a 5, 10, 15 or more year plan? What is the atmosphere like in your home? Do you have a savings account, life insurance, or investments? Do you regularly work on your marriage? Have you had speed bumps or flat tires along the way? Don't worry my friend, it's all apart of life, and learning to grow and overcome together. Life would be boring and have no meaning if you had everything you wanted, so your marriage is growing when you learn how to live well through the tough times.
Put Into Action
Take what you write down together, your dreams, values, and even the things you need to overcome. Make out a plan for your life on what that looks like to accomplish it! Have weekly meetings with your spouse, and create the life you want! Making sure you line up with the word of God, agreeing in prayer, and walking in this atmosphere that you create with your spouse in your home. Action is the key!! You have to do something different to see what you are wanting!!
Led By The Lord
A life well lived is walking with the Lord. You need Him to lead you and guide you, knowing and speaking His word, and being apart of the body in your church. Build your marriage around the altar, find your life spent giving your time, money and lives to the work of God!! It won't be worth it if you have everything and you don't have Jesus first!! Friend, Jesus is the only way to live your life well!! He has to be the center!
Scripture
Monday: Proverbs 31:27 says, “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” As a wife you want to create an atmosphere and place your spouse and family want to come home to!
Tuesday: Proverbs 19:1 says, "Better [is] the poor that walketh in his integrity, than [he that is] perverse in his lips, and is a fool." Values start with integrity! As we read the word as a married couple we find where we need to work, and where we need to change, so we can create values in our home.
Wednesday: James 1:22 says, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." We could just say we had values, we had to live them out!
Thursday: Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.' Even in marriage, you have to work, so when you do commit all of it to the Lord and he will help your thoughts to be established in His will!
Friday: Hebrews 3:18 says, "Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly." Values make up who you are, and what you do to live well, write it down and pray!
Saturday: Habakuk 2:2 says, “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Write it down, and then put it into action!
Sunday: Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." Trust Jesus and you will have a marriage and life well lived!!
Contact
Please feel free to contact us by way of email on our blog posts or our new website! Also, please feel free to share and post our blog posts! Happilyevermarried.org or blancinglifewiththebrowns@gmail.com Thank you and you too can have a happily ever married marriage!