Real Life Marriage: Marriage Keeps You Humble

"One day, some day," I thought to myself, "I will have a day when I don't lose it on my husband." And immediately afterward, I thought, "But maybe I won't. Losing it keeps me humble." 

I love my husband. I really do. I want to be a good wife. And I try, sometimes. But other times, I just lose it. I really do. I snap at him because I'm running late. I get onto him when he's not perfect (even though it's really my expectations that are the problem, not his). I get frustrated because he fixes dinner late, when I am late making dinner almost every time. I see flaws in him and point them out, even though I have those same weaknesses, and probably worse. I am not trying to make myself sound like a bad person. I am a sinner. That's just that.

God has blessed me in that he has given me a husband who shows me grace time and time again. That grace also humbles me, especially because it's another thing I lack. Day by day, though, it reminds me of God's grace, of his goodness. It reminds me that though I will always be a sinner, there is always grace to cover me.

Do I want to be a better wife? Yes! Do I hope that God will continue to conform me to his image and root out more and more sin? Yes. It is about progress, though, not perfection, and that process keeps me humble. Cognitively, I know I will not be a perfect wife, no matter how hard I try. Maybe one day, I will reach my goal of not snapping at my husband for a day, but even then, I will probably do it the next day, or soon after. 

Thank God for his goodness and grace. Thank God for a husband who shows me the same. Thanks, God, for a marriage that keeps me humble, even if I don't like it, when I don't like it. I want to keep growing in my marriage, and if humility is what it takes to do that, may I rely on God's strength to keep walking in it. Amen.

We're Always Getting There.

Three years ago. Three years ago today, I took this picture of this important piece of paper lying on the worn dashmat of my 1998 Saturn. After five years of graduate school and months and months of study, I had finally passed the National Counseling Exam. It was something I never thought I could do, or at least doubted I could do without God's strength and guidance and wisdom. And I'd done it. Praise Him!

I thought that passing that counseling exam would lead me to my preferred profession. But in reality, I'd already taken another job, and it wasn't counseling. I worked at that job for a year, and then went back to my core desire to help others and took a job in behavioral health. I thought that job would be something different than it was, or is, because I'm still at that job. And I like my job. I'm thankful for my job. But it definitely isn't the one I expected to have when I walked across the stage with my graduate degree in marriage and family therapy in 2015.

Life isn't what we think it is. Somehow, we think we'll someday arrive, but we don't. We don't ever quite find our perfect job. We don't ever quite reach our financial goals. We don't ever quite figure out who or what or where we want to be when we "grow up." My husband and I were just having that conversation with teens at our church, and we're both in our thirties.

No. We never quite arrive. We're always getting there. But I think that's God's way of reminding us that He's in control, that He's God, that we always need to be humble and willing to grow. Because growth is part of the journey, and in this life, the journey isn't over until we see Jesus. As believers in Christ, we should always be working toward getting there.

And Just When You Think You Have It...You Don't

"If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves."

~Galatians 6:3, New International Version [NIV]

I found myself doing and saying things I normally wouldn't. I found myself trying to prove something. I found myself wanting to be better than others. I found myself prideful.

I don't normally think of myself as a prideful person, but there I was prideful, puffing myself up, and in so doing being derogatory towards others and pushing them down. I wasn't being my true self, either. The Spirit convicted me, and I confessed. I thought I was good, and then a big crash happened. And I was further humbled. Pride goes before a fall, and man, did I have one (Prov 16:18). And I was prideful even in that crash. I had to repent of that, confess my sins to others, and ask for forgiveness.

The trick in my field of work is to remain curious, to never think you know it all. I didn't think I knew it all, and the fall still happened. And it was epic. I got to a point of pretty utter desperation and despair, and it wasn't pretty.

Humility is a fruit of the Spirit. It's a Spirit work, not a me work. And man do I know that now. I just hope I learn the lesson a little easier next time....