"Chunking" your Commitment!

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. --Lao Tzu--

Marriage is a journey that has a definite destination. The goal of marriage is to bring couples fulfillment by learning to love and live together like how Christ loves the church. The ultimate destination of marriage is reaching a place where both spouses are Christ-like servants to first and foremost one another and then to those around them, including their families, friends, and co-workers.

Like any journey, marriages have twists and unforeseen obstacles that make reaching our goal of a "perfect" and Christ-filled marriage difficult. Pains from the past, unforeseen loss, and financial burdens are just some of the circumstances that can cause people to quit this journey because they lose sight on their destination and are too weighed down by hurt and fear. People have preconceived notions that marriage should be easy and always "perfect" and romantic. When negative events shake our lives, we lose footing on this false preconception.

At times, a "perfect" marriage may seem impossible to achieve. That's because it is.

Marriage is a process--a journey--and like any journey, the only way to take it is one step at a time. It can be very overwhelming if you and your spouse make a commitment to have a "perfect" marriage that we know already does not exist in the romanticized way we think it does. We know our ultimate goal is to near perfection, but we may not know how to get there.

I love this quote and image! Source

Marisa's post yesterday on how to overcome addictions and baggage got me thinking about how we approach goals in general in our lives. The way many addicts (and people with other goals) approach their ultimate goal of being freed from their addiction, whatever it may be, is by saying "NO" to temptation one day at a time. To a sex addict, an alcoholic, or a chronic smoker, saying "NO" for a lifetime is extremely overwhelming, and the consequences for failure seem far more steep. Addicts who try to cold-turkey their addiction and don't make each day a step in their recovery but instead try to make their whole life a promise of freedom will binge on their addiction the minute they fail. Instead, if we fail on saying "NO" to an addiction for a day, we only have failed that day, not our entire lives (past or future). Addicts who use each day as a "step" will not binge if they slip.

People are overburdened by the notion that their entire marriage and family life has to be perfect. It never will be perfect, so if you believe your entire marriage ought to be perfect, you need to remove that false idea right now from your mind. Your marriage can (and will) be near perfect if you put in the work that the journey requires and, like addiction recovery, use each day as a step to reach your goal of a marriage that is in the perfect image of God's love. God is perfect and God is love. The reason why God's sacrament, marriage is imperfect is because people are imperfect, not God or marriage!

If the idea of having a near-perfect or perfect marriage seems overwhelming, "chunk" your commitment! 

Use each and every day in your marriage as a step in your journey to complete marital fulfillment. Commit to having the best marriage you can have today! I'm asking for 24 hours (more like 16 if you sleep 8 like me). Use each and every waking hour to tell your partner how much you love them, to show them what it means to love like Christ loves us, and to make sure your partner's every need is met. That's all I want. You'll find that after making the commitment to have the best marriage you can have today, tomorrow you can do the same thing. And the next day, and so on! Your life and marriage will become so amazingly blessed by chunking your ultimate goal into something far more manageable!

Lao Tzu was absolutely right in saying the longest journey starts with one step! Are you willing to take the first step and commit to make your marriage the most Christ-like it can be today?

Marisa and I sincerely hope that our posts and advice blesses you. We are by no means experts on marriage, dating, courtship, or Christian living, but we are trying to learn and grow! We always welcome comments, advice, questions, and testimonies on our blog by commenting below or you can reach us at showinghearts@gmail.com.

God bless you and I look forward to seeing what "chunking" your commitment can do for you and your marriage!

Addictions and Baggage

Let me make something clear.  Josh and I have a beautiful relationship.  I couldn’t be more blessed to have someone like him by my side.  In life, there’s always that one person that comes along and makes you realize why your other relationships never worked out.  There’s that one person who makes you understand that the word “love” is so much more than a four letter word.  For me, that special person is Josh.  Even before we first met, it’s always been him.  What makes our relationship so beautiful is that individually we are strong, loving people, and together, we are even stronger.  We’ve gone through so much during our courtship, but we’ve always come out stronger and more resilient.  We have hurt ourselves and each other multiple times, but we always end up falling deeper in love (cue eye rolls).  Say what you will, but I still believe in love, despite the fact that we live in what appears to be a loveless world.  I’m not saying that I believe a fairytale relationship, where each person is perfect and there are never any disagreements or hurt feelings.  I’m young, yes, but I’m by no means naive. 

I knew going into my relationship with Josh that there would be trials.  Think about it… two imperfect people that start dating/courting aren’t going to come together to make a perfect couple.  Logic states that imperfection can’t breed perfection.  It’s impossible.  Josh and I were two scarred, imperfect people going into an imperfect relationship.  We each brought our own set of baggage to the relationship, and as Josh mentioned in his earlier post, “Everyone comes with baggage.  Find someone who loves you enough to help you unpack.”  And that is exactly what we are doing.  Slowly but surely, we are helping each other to unpack.  We are laying out all our wounds, fears, addictions, and painful memories.  We are bearing it all, knowing that as we unpack we are gradually understanding each other better and as a result, falling more in love.

The baggage we brought may have been heavy, but it’s growing lighter each day.  Of this baggage, the heaviest by far has been our addictions, and I’m not necessarily referring to substance addictions.  According to Dictionary.com, the word “addiction” is defined as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming”.  How many of you can think of something in your lives that fits within this definition?  If you can’t think of anything, you’re either lying to yourself or you’re probably not human.  I know that I can think of several things in my life that can be defined as addictions.  I brought them into my relationship with Josh, just as Josh brought his own.  When you start dating/courting someone or even when you marry someone, your problems and addictions don’t magically disappear.  Instead, we bring each of them into our relationships and if we’re not careful, we give them the power to destroy everything in the relationship that we worked so hard to achieve.

If you’re currently in a relationship, what addictions do you have packed away in your suitcase?  Alcoholism?  Negativity?  Pornography?  A self-deprecating attitude?  An eating disorder?  Each of these addictions is not only burdensome and painful to carry, but can also take a toll on your significant other.  While it might be easier to ignore them at times, we must face them head on if we ever want our relationships to reach their full potential.  Only when we admit our faults to God, ourselves, and our loved ones can we finally find solutions and reach our own maximum potential.

Speaking from personal experience, I can say that Josh has had habits and addictions that have cut me deeply.  At times, I’ve been tempted to turn away, thinking that it will spare me from more hurt.  Yet, it is during these times that I also remember the unconditional love that God showed us when He sent His only son to die for us sinners.  We didn’t deserve His love and grace, yet we received it anyway.  Who are we to withhold this same unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance from others?  I’ve brought my fair share of baggage and addictions into my relationship with Josh, and he’s never turned away.  He’s always seen me for who I truly am and not what I do.  Josh deserves the very same from me.  He is not his past nor is he what he does or the mistakes he has made.  Josh is an imperfect individual just like me and worthy of my unyielding, unconditional love.

To close out this post, I’d like to go over a few steps for “unpacking” addictions and breaking them:

1. Ask yourself why you turn to ______.  Truly contemplate and pinpoint the underlying causes of your addictions and habits. 
2. Don’t minimize the severity of your addiction or deny it!  Face the fact that it is holding you down and preventing you from reaching your full potential.  If you can’t do this on your own, it’s perfectly okay to ask for help from your significant other or from loved ones. 
3. Seek alternative (healthy!) ways to cope with whatever is causing your addiction.  Don’t replace it with something equally damaging. 
4. Recognize your weaknesses.  Is it the Internet?  TV?  Negative friends?  If you want to progress and overcome your struggles, you need to get rid of whatever tempts or negatively influences you. 
5. Have a support system to help you on your journey!  Ecclesiastes 4:9 – 12 says it best.  “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.  If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.  But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.  Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone?  A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer.  Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”  We all need loved ones and friends that will be real with us and keep us accountable. 
6. Give yourself some credit!  As you progress and slowly overcome your addiction, reward yourself for your efforts.  Whether this reward is positive words to yourself or treating yourself (and your significant other) to a fancy dinner, you need to stay motivated!

Read and reread these steps.  Memorize them!  Write them on a notecard!  Do what you have to in order to keep them fresh in your mind.  I wish you the very best on your journey!

As always, feel free to email us as Showinghearts@gmail.com.  Josh and I hope to hear from you soon!