It’s like iron sharpening iron…on steroids. Here’s what the past twenty years of marriage have taught me. #1 I wasn’t as nice as I thought I was. If you have even an ounce of selfishness in you (and I had several ounces), marriage has a way of bringing it to the surface. God used marriage […]
My father-in-law recently celebrated a milestone birthday. He has been my father for the past ten years, and as we prepared to honor him, I was reminded of the impact he has made on me and our family. When I got married, I not only gained a husband, but I also inherited a second set […]
The first year of our marriage had humble beginnings. My husband picked up his whole life, leaving a business behind, to live in a new city with me while I was training for my career. It wasn’t easy for him to leave the home he always knew. Being apart from parents and close friends, we […]
The picture is about as old school as you can get. That is obvious. What isn’t so obvious is that we had been arguing on the way to the studio. Unfortunately, that was the case for the first few years of our marriage. I can remember another time that my husband and I were at […]
Last week I began a series to highlight the blessings in the unexpected season my family recently experienced. I remember when sharing the news about my husband’s layoff with a dear friend, her response was to embrace me and pray with me. The words that stood out the most to me were: “Help Joyce to […]
Yesterday we were invited to the celebration of new love at a sweet engagement party. Then, we had the honor of celebrating seasoned love at a beautiful 50th anniversary party. These events helped my husband and I recall our own early days with fondness and we were inspired to look at the years ahead with […]
When I first met the man I would one day marry, the thing that struck me the most was his smile. Do you know that to be able to genuinely smile is a God given gift? No, I am not talking about the kind that ends in a smirk or one given in a half […]
From the first year we celebrated the holiday together to our low-key Valentine’s Day dinner last year, we’ve talked about a lot of things in those 18 years. Our hopes, our dreams, our failures, our successes… Our least favorite praise & worship song. Wait, what?? Believe it or not, that was a part of the […]
Why does life seem so hard sometimes? I may have wondered this a few times in my lifetime: My first job was so stressful, I woke up with my stomach in knots every morning wondering what I would be criticized for. Days prior to my first Thanksgiving as a newlywed, my husband and I were […]
Are you praying together with your husband? I grew up in a home where we read the Bible and prayed together, every single night. I’m not saying that my sister & I always stayed awake but we were present and accounted for. When I got married, I envisioned doing the same thing with my husband…minus […]
Wise words
We were sitting in the back row of the church, deep in conversation. Since service had ended about an hour prior, the pews had emptied out and it was just the two of us. I
