Nine Years Married!

On November 3rd, Brian and I celebrated nine years of marriage!

We had a rare date night on Saturday for the occasion. I made reservations at Ruth's Chris because we had $250 in gift cards. Right as we sat down to order, I realized I had forgotten to bring the friggin' gift cards!!

Brian: "It's fine. Just order whatever you want. I didn't even know we were planning to use gift cards."

Kelly: "OK."

A few minutes later...

Kelly: "What are you getting?"

Brian: "Well, I would've gone for the bone-in filet had you remembered those gift cards..."

And that, my friends, is our marriage. :)

I don't yet have the age, wisdom, or life experience to be offering any marital guidance, but here's a little something I wrote last year that I shared with my Sunday School class:

Everywhere I go, there I am.

Even though I've been unable to attend the Sunday night book study at Kat's house, I've been reading "The Power of a Praying Wife" this month along with the other ladies in the group. I love this book for so many reasons, but mostly I love its emphasis on changing ourselves rather than changing our spouses. I may have a laundry list of complaints or maybe just some gentle suggestions for my spouse, but ultimately, the only person I can control is myself. I think it was in Tim Keller's book "The Meaning of Marriage" where he referenced a Broom Hilda comic strip. In the comic, the not-so-smart troll asks the studious buzzard "What is marriage?" The buzzard replies "Marriage is when two people become one"....and then the troll responds "but which one do they become?"

I've never been able to find this particular comic strip, but if I did find it, I would print it out and keep it up on my fridge as a daily reminder: my husband is not me! Even if I think my ways of doing things are superior, I doubt he is going to wake up one morning and finally see the light! Marriage brings two different people with two different backgrounds and two different personalities and maybe two different parenting styles and definitely two different spending habits together under the same roof. I can only control one of those two people. As hard as this is at times, it's made easier by remembering that -- as Christians -- we should always be striving to be more like Christ. If that's our goal, and if we re-focus our attitudes and change our own behavior to mimic that of Jesus Christ, our relationships will undoubtedly improve as a result.