When we married, we did not see church or our spiritual growth as a priority. We would go to church occasionally. We also did not understand the concepts of “oneness” or of marriage being a picture of Christ and the church. Our premarital counseling consisted of an hour with a pastor, the day before we got married.
In our late 20’s, life was not turning out as we had planned.
We came to the end of ourselves.
We were broken.
In God's providence, we found a small church in our rural, mountain community near us. The church was the same denomination that we had both grown up in. The pastor and his wife were about our age and from the same part of the country - we were all displaced Southerners. The pastor was well-educated and taught in-depth lessons, three or four times a week. This couple ministered to us and we became close friends.
We were fortunate because we took this journey of faith together.
Our faith became the foundation on which we built the rest of our lives - together. We changed the direction of our lives together. We began to grow spiritually together. We served together.
Shortly after that growth began, our family expanded, we had our first child. We knew that our skills and knowledge for parenting and marriage were far from what God wanted for us.
Then, our quest and our passion was to know how to live the Christ-life as a married couple and as parents. That was 35 years ago.
In this journey, we have not always done it right.
We have struggled with parenting and marriage - but we have grown together and we did not give up! We still have disagreements but we do not let them divide us. We came to learn what true oneness means.
We didn't always grow at the same rate. We have different spiritual gifts and different talents and different personalities. But we both continued to grow in our relationship to the Lord and with each other. We did it together!
If Christ can work in us and through us,
He can do it in you too ….. if you let HIM!
