My Justin

Challenge #4 List all the ways I admire my husband.

It is human nature to think on the faults of those we are around the most, so it is important to take time to think on the good in one another. I am so very thankful for this challenge!

1. He works so hard, I know his shoulder hurts every day from his work accident in 2007. He wants me to be at home with our son so he pushes himself even when he is in a lot of pain. I admire his endurance. Some weeks he works 6am till 8 or 9 pm then works on the weekend.

2. He has a heart for children and teens, after a long Wednesday working we pick up anywhere from 5 to 15 young people for bible study and fellowship, even on nights when he is tired and sore (which is more often than not) he does not cancel on the kids.

3. He is a giver of his time, when we were first married I was not very understanding about this but as I have come to understand Justin I have learned he just enjoys being there for people and helping out, this is a quality I wish more people had. A lot of times he has came home a for a change of clothes and a meal just to head out the door to go help someone else.

4. He is always making me laugh. He loves to joke and tease.

5. He is very honest, he always answers honestly. People that know him (even if they don't always agree with him) respect him because he is so honest.

6. He plays with our son, even when I know he has had a rough day he will lay on the floor and play airplanes or vroom vroom with little man.

There are many more reasons I admire him, he is always there for me to kill bugs even though he laughs. He watches our son after a hard day at work so I can go to women's bible study.

He listens to me when I talk late into the night even when he has no idea what I am saying. He does not give up on people, he has one friend he has been praying for, for many years.

He works with our church teens to help them get a summer job and some work ethic.

When it all comes down to it he is the one for me, but more important then even that he is one God has chosen to do great things! I am so happy to be here to meet his needs and follow his lead as God leads him to great things.

A new veiw on prayer

Week #3 challenge: Pray for my husband daily.

Okay, I did not think this would be to hard when I first read the list. I pray for him every day, to be safe, to call me, to get up on time, I even pray with our little man for daddy thanking God for daddy who works hard.
But this morning when I got up at 5:30 and nudged my husband out of bed, (he said he had to get up at 5:30 when I did) he said in a whispering voice that I was being grouchy and to let him sleep. At that moment I did not think to pray for him instead I got grouchy, (though I was not grouchy before) no mean words or bad thoughts just a sour attitude about me. Then I looked at this weeks challenge from WomenLivingWell, I thought I don't need to worry about this one I already do it, as I read the challenge a little more I seen the list of 30 things I can pray about for my husband I wrote them down to try and do a few in depth each day. Then it came to the idea of asking him what would be a prayer request of his, that's an idea that has never hit me before I decided not to do it, he would probably not say anything that I was not already praying for anyways (me and my self-righteousness).
When he did get up he told me that the reason he did not get up was that he decided to get a little extra sleep since he was going to work very late tonight, It is now 11:11pm and he has not yet made it home from the job but he has called.
As he walked out the door this morning for some strange reason (when I was over my grouchy attitude) I asked him- when I pray today is there anything you would like me to pray for? Without thinking twice he had an answer, and it was something I would have never thought of. I have spent the day praying on this one request more than any other, I felt in some ways like I went to work with him while I was praying for his one request.
I feel like I have just scratched the surface of what a prayer relationship with my husband, for my husband can be.
Thanks to Courtney I am trying new things.

I do want to share one extra thing on prayer, our son is now 17months old we have been praying with him since he was new born. For the past week when we say okay lets pray and try to hold his hand he pulls his hands away says" I do it" puts his hands together gently bows his head and listens quietly. Then shouts AMEN!

The Challenge= Our wedding Vows

This weeks challenge:
To Remember. Remember the day we entered our sacred vows. Post pictures and blog about it.


Today is Thursday so I am a little late on the challenge but I am now getting to the blogging part.

I have spent the week thinking back on our wedding day and all the fun memories from that day and the few days before.
The women in my family and my church family helped me plan the special day and decorate the church. Being part of the decorating gave me a great feeling like everything was tied together, the over stressing person I can be started thinking that if one thing did not follow the plan it would all be messed up. My sweet Justin kept giving me hugs and telling me it was all going great! That has always been something great he does for me when I am stressing, his calm reassurance that it will all turn out great.

Since we both agreed when planning the day that since we do not believe in luck we would not worry about preventing the groom from seeing the bride before walking down the aisle.

We were able to take pictures before my mascara ran down my face and while he was still some what shaky.

Justin's little sister who was about 4 at the time made such a pretty flower girl, as she headed down the aisle I heard laughing and did not know until later that half way down she drooped all the flowers looking ahead she seen her other brother Josh (the best man) and since he was laughing she stuck out her tongue and started walking faster.

We decided together to write our own vows, that made our wedding unique and even more special.
I remember each of us smiling nervously laughing as we missed a few of the things we had wanted to say. Since the only one who knew each of our vows besides us was the pastor, who by the way was my dad it was not a big deal that we missed a few words.
When planning the big day I made a Cd of all the songs we wanted, among the ones I remember are Butterfly Kisses (my dad walked me down the aisle) My Best Friend (as we left the sanctuary) and Forever and Ever Amen (one of the few dances I had for just the bride and groom).
As we walked out of the church sanctuary we greeted each of our guests and sent them to the reception.

As we left the church with our family and friends cleaning we were able to get our stuff ready for our Honeymoon getaway from my wonderful in-laws.
We met my family at the only nice restaurant still open at 8 and began our relaxing period. As we headed for out on our honeymoon we talked the whole 3 hour drive about the day, what we liked the best, how glad we were that it did not snow to much, and we laughed when we realized both of us missed some of our vows.
Though we Both remembered "Forever, I Do".

The Challenge = Our story

Taking part in the Women Living Well summer marriage challenge I did not know what to expect. This weeks challenge is to look back on the dating days, when it all started and remember the things we did back then. What has changed or been lost that we used to find time for then try to rekindle those things we used to do, those memories of the times that first sparked love...

Our story: I had hit a point at 22 years of age were I felt I needed to get out and date. I had only been in one relationship from 15-19 and never dated anyone from 19-22 so my plan of being a wife and a mom by the time I was 25 was starting to look like it would never happen. Since not being asked out on any real dates for four years I started thinking I needed to get out and meet some new guys.

I worked at Hardees fast food and told the guys at work that my new plan was to go out on first dates with any guys that asked me out.

My ideal type of guy had always been the cute techno savvy guy that was always well groomed, smells like the Ambercrombie store and wore the matching instyle clothes that I did.

Boy were my ideas wrong!

They guys at work wanted to have fun at my expense so they made a bet with one of their buddies that this girl would go out with him if he asked.

He had his lunch breaks at the factory where he worked during my shift so he came in one night to order food and asked me out.

I told him that I worked every weekend (a polite and definite no I thought) and gave him his food. When I went home I kept telling myself that he was not the kind of guy I wanted at all being he was a rough looking guy always covered in dirt and grease from his work.

In the mean time some family friends set me up with this guy that fit all the "perfect guy" thoughts I had in mind. It was a nice few phone calls and one nice date with this guy whom now I can not even remember his name.

Then again came Justin to ask me out while I was at work, this time to my horror my boss was working as well and she told Justin she would give me Friday night off if we wanted to go out. I don't like being put on the spot so I said sure, knowing that a movie I had wanted to see was in the theater and at least this way I would get a free meal and show.

My very well meaning sister who I rented a house with at the time said with caution "you don't even know this guy". My closest friend had attended high school with him and said he was trouble. But I assured them all that it was one date one free meal and one free movie.
Dinner and movie went well, Justin's parents and little brother showed up at the movie also and made a joke that they were going to sit behind us and keep an eye on us. This was actually a nice ice breaker for me as I was still nervous this about this guy not knowing much about him.

After the movie we sat and talked at Hardees until they turned the lights out then we talked in the parking lot until I realized I had to be up in 3 hours to be back at work.

I was very amazed that we had so much to talk about, him being the rough kinda guy I thought he was.

Over the next 5 months of dating I found that he may look rough but he was a very kind and caring man. We spent those dating months with alot of late nights and early mornings ending in deep conversation and alot of weekends riding around in his truck while he shared his memories from childhood. Some of the best times during our dating were the simple ones.

I learned that what I thought was most important qualities for the man I wanted to spend my life with were not important things at all.

Justin asked me to be his wife as he stood before my church on a Sunday night and read Proverbs 31 then he told me and the closest people in my life I was all he never knew he wanted and needed.

Looking back at the pictures of our dating days I see the handsome man I had not noticed that first day when he asked me out.

One thing I did just for Justin to show him how much I loved him while were dating that I do not make time for now is leaving notes for him to find through out his day. I am going to start doing this again.

Summer Challenge

Striving to be the wife God created me to be. Starting yet another summer challenge, hoping this is one I will not fail at following each week.


http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/search/label/Marriage%20Challenge

Seasons

I remember around Christmas saying after the holidays it will slow down, boy was I wrong. Come to think of it i have said that at least once each season during the past few years..
I think it is something I have learned to say to feel better about the things I do not accomplish that I feel are so very important, like the spring window cleaning or the summer yard work or the fall house repairs then the winter visiting family and "friends" I don't take the time to visit all year.. Maybe if I just stop saying "After things slow down" and stop feeling stressed about the things I don't get done, then I can take time and look back at all the really important things that were done and just say Thank You God for all you do for me.

A new season

This week, for the first time I had the privilege of leading into study and fellowship a group of outstanding christian women. All different ages and all of them my peers. I felt very under qualified to be leading such awesome ladies, that for the most part have watched me grow up..
When I think about learning God's ways I feel like there are no age barriers between us... there are only more chances to learn and grow.. I love to sit with other women and hear the different things they talk about. I guess this goes all the way back to when I was very young and went with my mother to ladies dinners, baby showers, or even the occasional cry on my shoulder time... I listened so intently though not knowing what impact it had on me... The number one thing I have always heard women say to one another is "will you pray for me?" And now that I am older and those words are said to me quite often I wonder how many times we say I will and then don't.. Lifting up others in prayer changes the life of the one who is praying as well as the person requesting prayer... I know for me as a very young girl my mother prayed over me at night after I had fallen asleep, one night I awoke and thought she was very strange for doing this, now as a mother I lay my son down for bed and pray with him then pray over him(now she is not so strange).. It gives me peace of mind. It helps me sleep at night. Prayer has changed me. Colossians 4:2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.