Our Marriage Testimony

Why are we going to Washington?  We are headed there to serve the church God used to save “us”.  Let me explain…

This is actually the short version of our marriage testimony…

One year ago Jason and I sat on a park bench in Texas, trying to decide if we could stay married. It wasn’t a fight. It was two sad, frustrated people facing what felt like failure. We’ve been through a lot of trauma together, the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. We’ve had many happy days in our marriage, we do love each other. And there has also always been a disconnect and imbalance between us. I wanted….more. For the longest time, I couldn’t put a name to what that was, I just felt it. I was consistently burned out, frustrated, defensive and overly critical. He was consistently passive, disconnected and resistant to change. We decided to work on our marriage, look for actionable new resources and make a list of what we each wanted and needed to stay in the marriage.

We came across a sermon series called Stronger Marriage and decided to watch it together. We both listened intently because we’d never heard marriage laid out this way before. At the end of the 3rd sermon, Jason got up from his seat, walked over to me and said “I am so sorry. All these years, I thought you were expecting too much.”  Over the following days, I watched God burst into the heart of my husband. These sermons spoke to us, changed us, in ways we never anticipated. God created marriage and when we started following His design for marriage, EVERYTHING changed. Our connection to Jesus and each other changed.  Priority changed: God, each other, then kids. Jason focused on stepping in to his God given authority to lead our family, protecting and providing spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially.  He started to love me as Christ loves the church.  This created a marriage where I feel safe, valued and prioritized. I focused on stepping back and giving him space to lead our family, respecting him and being the helper God created me to be. I experienced real femininity for the first time in my life. It’s a shockingly beautiful place to rest in. Setting down all the things I wasn’t meant to carry. Men desire respect, women desire safety. We both needed God at the center and once we did that, we connected, stepping in to a relationship we didn’t even know was possible.  It’s as though we are in a completely different marriage now, I barely recognize us when I stop and think about the differences, in the very best of ways!

We started reading the Bible every day, twice a day. Life changing!  We started praying together as soon as we wake up and right before bed every day (and many times in-between). Life changing!  We started praying over every child, every day, speaking Jesus in to their lives.    Life changing!  Those prayers spoke life in to our marriage, our home, our kids. We broke our marriage down, brick by brick and rebuilt it with God as our foundation. Our kids started noticing the differences in us.  Four months in, I watched with tears as my husband was baptized in a river in Colorado. He then helped baptize 2 of our teenagers. God is so faithful!  We then entered a season of repentance as a family, evaluating and removing sin, our habits, our priorities, friendships, ungodly media, apps, books, tv shows and so much more.  We looked at what was coming in to our lives, and if what we were impacting outside of our home, was pleasing to God or not.  We had a lot of work to do.

While we both regret we didn’t start our marriage this way, we are also thankful our kids were witnesses to our pause, re-prioritization and submission to God. There is so much value in seeing the differences in our marriage, before and after Jesus at the center.

The last year has been filled with a lot of hard work, mistakes, so much grace and forgiveness. I went back to look at those first lists we made to be willing to stay…they seem so simple now because God’s plan for us was so much bigger.  We are so thankful. I cringe when I think we almost lost this. We have both changed so much.  Jason and I are closer to God now, we can glorify Him with our marriage and it’s a beautiful experience.  We are heading to Washington to serve Jesus and the church, find community, be refined by that community and we are so excited to make friends there!  We arrive TODAY after more than a year of praying, trusting and planning.

God changed our legacy and we are so very thankful.  While we lost a lot of time (19 plus years doing things our way), the abundance of this blessing is that much sweeter because we had so many years without it.  The future for these four people looks different now.  This cross was a wedding gift we used during our wedding ceremony.  This year Taryn added a wood base it.  It’s hung over every door we’ve ever owned.  But now it means so much more to us.

The moments we’ve spent in prayer over the last year are written on my heart forever and this photo is a treasure and representation of all we have been through together.  God is so, so good!  We took these photos the morning of our 20th wedding anniversary!  Photo credits to the incredible Tara Pottichen, thank you for capturing our love and faith so beautifully!