Embrace Your Marriage: A Virtual Marriage Retreat...enjoy for free from your home!

I am so excited about this series!  6 bloggers, including one of my all time favorites Lisa Jacobson, joined together to do a Marriage Retreat to encourage women in their marriages every Monday of each of the 5 weeks in the month of September.  Total there will be 30 posts this month on marriage on these 6 ladies blogs. 

Every Monday in September, each of the following blogs will be offering a word of wisdom and inspiration to encourage you in your marriage.

• Darlene Schacht of Time-WarpWife
• Courtney Joseph of WomenLivingWell
• Ashleigh Slater of AshleighSlater
• Jennifer Smith of UnveiledWife
• Sheila Gregoire of ToLoveHonorandVacuum
• Lisa Jacobson of Club31Women

And here’s what you have to look forward to!

• September 1 – Embracing Grace 
• September 8th – Embracing Change  
• September 15th – Embracing Your Differences  
• September 22nd – Embracing Unity 
• September 29th – Embracing Friendship  

To read week one posts, click on the links to the 6 bloggers websites.  :-)

Sorry that I'm getting this out late...I just read the post this morning and then read all of week one's posts.  I hope you'll be blessed and encouraged!   And for the young single gals like me...we can consider it part of our learning and preparation for our, Lord willing, future marriages.  :-)  And actually, when you look at what the heart of what these ladies are saying, the focus is really to become more Christ-like, and one of the big ways that the Lord sanctifies us is through relationships, whether it be a spouse, siblings, or even a friend.  When developing more Christ-like character is the focus, there's something for all of us to learn from it!  So I hope you find that true of these posts.  :-)  A word of caution for the singles...Shelia Gregoire of ToLoveHonorandVacuum tends to be very frank and open and not as discreet in what she shares, so you may want to be careful there.   Happy reading!

~Breanna

Marriage and Ketchup-- They're Both Worth The Wait!

I thought this post by Darlene Schacht from The Time-Warp Wife blog was fantastic and a great reminder!  I hope you are blessed by it as well!

In the 1970’s Heinz came out with series of commercials illustrating how slow their ketchup flowed from the bottle. Point being that their ketchup was thicker and richer than the other brands on the shelf. To reinforce their brand, “Anticipation, you’re making me wait” was their theme song, along with a tagline that read, “Taste that’s worth the wait!”

While watching an episode of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, I learned from a young age how centrifugal force was my ally when it came to dressing my dog and fries. One long swoop of the bottle and it was putty in my hands. Well, more like ketchup on my plate, but you get the idea...

Kids nowadays don’t know how easy they have it with plastic squeeze bottles and condiment pumps, but while they have it easy, they’re missing out on simple lessons learned through patience.

Fast food, fast cars, fast money, and fast access to pain relief have left us weak and void of muscle tone when it comes to flexing the muscle of patience. We must exercise patience daily in order to increase in strength.

Dictionary.com defines patience this way, “Bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.” That includes nagging of course.

Can you see how this would be an asset to any marriage? In a perfect marriage we’d see two people living in harmony without complaint. There’d be no sign of irritation or annoyance, and tempers would be under control at all times.

But we don't live in a perfect world, do we? We live in a world of anticipation that's making us wait. We live in a messy world where the abundance of an angry heart spouts forth more times than we'd like. We say and do things that pierce each other deeply.

We’d all love it if our husbands had the patience of Job, and if we could experience instant and perpetual bliss (yeah, I'm feeling a little 'Faith Hill" today). That would be easy, but instead of seeking a shortcut in hopes that my husbands will change, I challenge myself to focus inward and exercise that patience myself.

When I take my eyes off of Michael's failures and turn them toward God, where I learn perfect patience, I allow Him to work through me. And why wouldn't I? God can do so much more than I ever could on my own. His wisdom is so far beyond mine that I'm constantly surprised by His wondrous ways.

It's just a matter of teaching myself to relax, pray, and wait on the Lord. In other words I give up my wants and my desires to be shaped by His will.

We might not understand the momentum once we step onto the Potter's wheel, but centrifugal force is our ally when we're clay in His hands.

It takes time to build a relationship as we practice being both patient and waiting on God, but some things--like marriage and ketchup--are well worth the wait.

The first lesson to be learned and practiced is loving patience. It requires some time to bring any two lives into perfect unison so that they shall blend in every chord and tone. - J.R. Miller

You are loved by an almighty God,
Darlene Schacht




~Posted By Breanna