The "difficulty" of marriage.

Let me start off by saying that I am no expert in this. Cory and I have been married only 1 year and 7 months, so (Lord-willing) we still have a LONG way to go in this marriage thing. However, even with my limited experience and limited knowledge of marriage, I wanted to give you some encouragement..especially for those who are either engaged or hoping to get married sometime in the future.

Before we got married, I can't tell you how many people told us "Run away while you can!", "Do you REALLY want to do this?!", "You're too young, don't get tied down already", "Marriage is so hard, you're going to want to give up", etc. We were told that especially during the first year we would fight a lot and that it would be really, really hard. Almost all of the advice we got was how to fight (which is definitely very valuable advice) but from how often we heard it I thought we would be fighting all of the time.

Needless to say, after hearing all of this, I was beyond TERRIFIED. I was honestly wondering why on earth people got married if it was so difficult and terrible all the time. It gave me a really negative view of what our marriage was going to look like, especially for that first year.

Here we are 1 year and 7 months later and I am so thankful to God to be able to say that marriage does not have to be like that. I am NOT saying that we have never disagreed and there have definitely been arguments, but even despite many huge life changes and struggles we have encountered so far, we have not had an all out war in our home as I thought would be the case from what others told us. I often wonder if we are doing something wrong- and maybe we are- but we've found marriage to be a whole lot easier than what we expected.

I think that a lot of it is about your attitude and where your focus lies. Marriage is about God and glorifying Him (not about you) and keeping that in mind is so important. Most of our arguments are centered around our selfishness and a lot of that can be eliminated when focus is placed on God and serving your spouse.

Here are some verses we have found to be helpful:

Proverbs 17:14 "The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out."

Ephesians 4:26-27 "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil."

Ephesians 4:1-3 "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Ephesians 5:22, 25-29 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord...Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present that church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church..."

Philippians 2:1-5 "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus."

...and those are just a few of the many that I could have put on here.

Some practical things that we've found helpful in our marriage:

• Pray for & with each other daily
• Do Bible study together
• Make time for uninterrupted date nights- no computers, TV, iPhones, kids, etc
• Talk!- once again without computers, TV, iPhones, kids, etc. Share your dreams, your successes, your failures, and even the little (and seemingly unimportant) details of your day.
• Don't allow your arguments to linger. Talk about and take care of disagreements right away. (Eph. 4:26-27) 
• Admit when you were wrong and ask for forgiveness (this is difficult!)

If you aren't married yet, you can still prepare for these things. Stay in the Word. Pray for your attitude and the attitude of your future spouse. Take care of arguments with friends/family immediately, because that verse doesn't apply to only marriages but it will prepare you for doing the same with your spouse.

My intention is not to brag on us- because we definitely don't have it all figured out and we fail often, but I wanted to write this to encourage you that marriage is a huge blessing from God and one to rejoice in, not something that you have to be scared about like I was.

If things are currently rough in your marriage, don't lose heart. Through Christ, things can change. Repent. Dig into the Bible with your spouse to study what God says about marriage. Pray, pray, and pray some more!

Please let me know how we can pray for you and for your marriage (or future marriage).

Moving...again!

If you looked at how many times I have moved in the past 7 years (6 times!), you would think that I LOVE moving. Its just not true. Packing your whole life into boxes time and time again gets very old. Its nice to get a fresh start and be able to go through everything we own in order to get rid of stuff, but its just not very fun to pack!

However, we are getting a great reward at the end...our very first home! We are super, super excited that the Lord has placed this opportunity in front of us and allowed us to go through the home buying process so smoothly.

So, for all who have not yet seen...THIS is our new home (unofficially since we haven't gone through closing yet-as of now it will be March 18)!

We fell in love from the moment we stepped inside.
We can't wait to get settled in and start making it "ours"! I see lots of painting in our future... ;)

Just wanted to give you this little update. More pictures will come once we get those keys in our hands next month!

Please forgive me.

I have been absolutely terrible about updating this.

Not to make excuses (but I'm going to anyway), we have had 2 broken computers and have been traveling quite a bit. If we weren't traveling, I was busy at work, so it just didn't get done!

But hopefully things will slow down a little bit and we will be more on a "set schedule" for at least a little while.

Things have been awesome for us- we got to go to Florida for Christmas, which was such a huge blessing. We spent 4 days in Pensacola with the Edgar side of the family. Then we spent a week with the Jewett side of the family. A huge bonus was getting to see my brother, sister in law, and niece for the first time in almost 10 years since my brother has been in the Air Force overseas!! And it was Cory's first time meeting them of course! It was great to get to catch up with them, though I wish it could have been longer!

After spending that time with family, we came back to Dallas where I worked for 3 nights, and then we drove straight back to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl. What a disappointing/embarrassing game that was! BUT we stayed in New Orleans for a few days with Cory's parents, so it made up for it. We got to enjoy the city-especially the beignets and cajun food. We also got to catch up a little with our friends Beth and Josh who are living there now! I love that city-so much good food and a super fun environment.

Now we are back in town for at least the next couple months. Cory has started school again...his third semester believe it or not! Its crazy how fast its going (at least it seems fast to me-it might not feel so fast to Cory ;) ).

Please be praying for us and let us know how we can pray for you :)

Major prayer points:
-My job and Cory's school (as always)
-Wisdom about whether or not to move (still in DFW, of course)

Night Shift

Its so hard to believe, but my day shift orientation is officially over. It went by super fast, but I really enjoyed getting to know all of the people who work during normal hours ;) I am glad that I started out there because I got to see how busy it is during the day and got used to caring for patients even when the day was crazy so hopefully that means it will be a little easier during the night.

As fun as it was to be on the day shift, I'm excited about getting to nights. For those who don't know what that means, I will be working 7pm-7am for three nights a week. I'm a little nervous about it, just because I don't know how our new schedule will work...but we will just make the most of the time that we have together on those days and we just have to remember that its only 3 nights!

Positives about working nights:

1) Usually [knock on wood] its a slower pace.

2) No waking up early in the morning!

3) Less doctors/PT/OT/etc taking your patients from one end of the hospital to the other.

4) More money!

5) More time for actually learning and not just rushing around trying to complete tasks

My first night shift is this Tuesday! Please be praying for us as we figure out how our marriage/life works when working different shifts :)

Quick update

Just wanted to share a quick update and I will be back this week for more!

-Work has been great. I'm learning a lot and each day is getting more and more challenging. (I know that seems backwards-it should be getting easier, but its just because I get more and more responsibility all the time as my preceptor is trusting me to do things). Being completely honest, there have already been days where its all I can do to hold back tears until I leave...but its the times when patients tell me how great I've been doing that makes it all worth it. Hopefully with time I will feel completely comfortable with what I know, but I know it will just take time and practice!

-School for Cory has been going well..just busy as always! He's still loving it though and is excited to be learning more practical things this semester (last semester was still a lot of the science and background stuff). This past weekend he got to help out with the incoming class interviews. It's so hard to believe that about a year ago we were interviewing at a bunch of schools and had absolutely no clue where we would be...it doesn't seem like its been that long!

-My mom came to visit!!! She was here a little over a week ago and it was so great to have her here! She found a super cheap last minute flight..$60 Round trip, plus $50 for bags..so all together it was $110 round trip...which is crazy cheap!!!! Keep that in mind everyone :) Spirit Airlines has some great deals-especially in the month of October, hint hint. ;)

- God keeps confirming day after day that we are supposed to be here and it's been so great...but more on that later this week probably! 

Busy August

This summer has been so busy! Its been such a blessing to have so much going on, but between that and a computer that hasn't been working right, we haven't been updating nearly as much as we would like. Hopefully that will change once we get into more of a "routine" (does that ever really happen?!)...but we'll see!

The biggest change this past month is that I started my job! I absolutely LOVE it. I know that its exactly where I'm supposed to be and I have no doubts that nursing is my calling in life. I'm so thankful for that. Being in the residency program has also been a big blessing because its allowing me to go to classes and learn more about what I'm actually seeing on the unit. I didn't know it was going to be so involved when I first accepted the job, but I'm definitely glad now. 

Another big update is that the couple that we are mentoring had their sweet baby girl. Praise God for a healthy baby!!! :)

Cory had summer break for about 10 days this month, and during that time we got to go to San Antonio to celebrate our 1 year anniversary! It was a blast. We stayed at a hotel on Riverwalk so we got to enjoy being in the middle of all the fun, we also went to the Alamo, to Schlitterbahn (an awesome waterpark), and got to explore some beautiful caverns. The best part of our hotel was that it was dog friendly...so Riley got to come along! It was a nice time away and fun to explore another city in Texas. Oh! And Cory got me a super nice camera!!! I was so excited because I've been taking all my pictures with my iPhone and they are not the best quality. Its gonna be nice to have a real camera again!

As soon as we got back from that trip, Cory went to a lake in east Texas with some friends from school. He loved being back on the water, even if it was a lake instead of the beach, so I was glad he got to enjoy that time before going back to school!

He is now in his 2nd semester...and we can already tell that its going to be a lot busier than last semester. Partly because now I am working but also the material that he is learning is going to be a lot more time consuming than the summer semester.

Another huge blessing is that he is now involved in the Christian organization on campus (its the BCM out here)..and he got to meet with the director, who seems really awesome. There are going to be medical mission trips and outreaches to get involved with so thats super exciting. She also had contacts at a pregnancy center that I've been praying about volunteering at..so we'll see how that goes! 

Last, but definitely not least,  we will be in GAINESVILLE next weekend!!!! Its Cory's birthday and he wanted to see the first game of the season so we decided to make the trip! Its going to be a whirlwind weekend but it will be so worth it :) Also, we got tickets to go to the Texas A&M game so we are going to see the first two games of the season...which we definitely didn't think would be possible! Praise God for the little blessings :)

Please remember us in your prayers! 

Summer fun

A super, fun-filled month= serious lack of blog posts.

This past month has just been so full of family and old friends...and even some new ones! Its been great to say the least and time sure does FLY when you are having fun. I can't believe its almost been a month since I last wrote a post.

Some of the highlights of this past month have been:

-Meeting the refugee couple that I am mentoring. They are super sweet and I love hearing their life stories. She is 8 months pregnant, so we are currently in the process of helping them prepare for the new baby. I can't even imagine how scared I would be having my first child in a brand new country, where I barely spoke the language, and was away from all of my family...but I know that God is going to take care of them. Please pray for them and for a healthy baby!

-We got to see Justin Morgan, who is back in the US after spending 2 years in Lesotho with the Journeyman program. I can't tell you how good it was to see him again! I loved hearing about his time in Africa and was so glad that he was able to make the trip down from Oklahoma!

-I drove to Temple, TX to meet Amanda Morgan (not related to Justin...) at a lake for a fun and relaxing afternoon. It was so good to catch up with her. She has been in TX all summer as an intern on a ranch, so she had lots of good stories to tell! She also spent the night with us last week, which was awesome as well! :)

We went to Joe T. Garcia's when Amanda spent the night with us

The lake in Temple, TX

-Cory's family (mom, dad, brother, grandma) came in town for a week...we did a ton of the "tourist" things while they were here and got to try out some yummy restaurants. Among other things, we walked around downtown and showed them where JFK was killed, went to the Cowboys stadium, went to the Fort Worth Stockyards, had a 4th of July party, and just spent time together!

Cowboys Stadium

Fort Worth

Cotton Bowl

Mini golf

Yummy cupcakes in Ft. Worth

 

Downtown Dallas

-Cory had his white coat ceremony..I'm so proud of him and excited that he is finally studying what he loves!

-We went to Florida for Cory's great-grandmother's 90th birthday and a wedding. It was great that they were both on the same weekend so that we were able to make it! We were glad to see family and spend some much needed time at the beach. The Blue Angels were also performing that weekend at the beach, so we were excited that we got to see them!

The Blue Angels

-I got to do all of my pre-orientation and health screening stuff for work! I can't believe it is coming so SOON! I am so excited to finally be working and doing what I love and went to school to do!

-My old college roommate (and friend from middle school), Amanda, was in town because her parents just moved out here about a month or so after we did, so we got to have dinner with all of them. One of our other roommates, Megan, also lives in Dallas and came over as well-so it was fun to have 3 out of 4 of the roommates together again...in Dallas of all places! We wish that Sarah could have been here too...but maybe next time! :)