Written by Candace on June 3, 2014 | 4 Comments

Love & Respect
Make Marriage Happen

Well, this week marks the beginning of June and I am going to try my best to keep the Make Marriage Happen series going.

I’m going to combine my topics for May and June into one month. For the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing two necessities for marriage: love and respect. One of the best marriage conferences I ever attended was the Love & Respect Conference. Not only is the speaker, Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, extremely funny, but the advice he gives is so practical. I actually have the DVDs and have been thinking about going through them again. Would anyone be interested in joining us? It’s always encouraging to do it with others. I believe it would be a 5-week series, just throwing that out there to see if there’s an interest.

While we all need love and respect equally, Emerson lays out a great amount of research showing that the felt need differs between men and women during conflict. Vitaliy and I can definitely see the difference in our own relationship. So, I’ll be sharing how this plays out in our own marriage and hope you find it encouraging for your own.

Until then, I want to leave you with one last thought to ponder. We had guest speakers at church on Sunday, Jeff and Stacy Kemp. Jeff is Vice President with FamilyLife and HomeBuilder Catalyst. Together, they often speak at Family Life’s A Weekend to Remember, a marriage retreat that I have always heard is phenomenal. They shared a ton of great things, but I took note of one small thing I thought was worth pondering on. He gave an example of a friend of his that wrote a question on his mirror to remind himself to better love his wife each day. The question was this, “Would I want to be married to me?” I cannot think of a more convicting question to ask myself for accountability in my own marriage. So, what do you think? Would you want to be married to you? When I ask myself that question, I have a few things that I know I need to change ASAP. Perhaps, writing that down on a sticky note will give you the kick in the pants you might need to better love or respect your spouse this week.

Let’s Make Marriage Happen! Together.

Couple walking on the Kobylianska street in Chernivtsi

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Written by Candace on May 21, 2014 | Chime in

Invest In What Matters Most

The last few weeks have been hard to invest in writing. I almost wrote a blog post to say I’d see you next month. Thankfully, I pushed past the fear and here I sit today, putting my words down on paper.

It’s not necessarily that I fear to write. The problem is that when I have too many items on my plate, my first instinct is too put off the creative projects. It’s so much easier to invest in the busy work that doesn’t require you to put your heart on the line. Stay safe. Stay comfortable. But life begins at the end of your comfort zone. I don’t know who said that, but it’s written on my inspiration board as a constant reminder.

Along with striving for a life of less, I’m also constantly working to enjoy grace. God offers it to me on a daily basis. Why am I so infrequently willing to offer it to myself? In hopes to seek grace, not perfection, I’m not going to have a themed Making Marriage Happen series for May. I had it all planned out in my head, but I’m not going to be able to invest the time this month to write the articles. I’ve got other things I’d like to share here, other projects to accomplish, and relationships I’d like to invest an extra amount of time in.

But we do have to Make Marriage Happen this month! So, if I can encourage you in your marriage, it would be to ask you one question. What do you need to quit or give up today in order to have more time and energy, patience and love, for your wife or husband? We can’t always do it all. Sometimes we have to give up something good or something we love in order to invest in what matters most.

This month I said “no” in order to say “yes” to surprising my mom and family for Mother’s day weekend. It was the best decision!

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Written by Candace on May 6, 2014 | Chime in

Forgiveness
The Recap

Before we move onto May’s theme for the Making Marriage Happen series, I thought I’d share a few more thoughts about forgiveness I had hoped to elaborate on but didn’t get to this month. If you’re new here, you can find my original post on forgiveness here.

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned about forgiveness in my own marriage.

Try not to get hung up on the words “I’m sorry.” Early in our marriage I used to get upset with the way Vitaliy would express an apology. Isn’t that funny? While trying to reconcile, I’d get all upset again because he didn’t apologize using the specific words, “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t understand why I didn’t see that he was trying to apologize and I couldn’t understand how an apology wouldn’t include the words “I’m sorry.” After 7 years of marriage, we are now better at understanding each other and there’s definitely a stronger level of trust.
Do not let unforgiveness hold you back from giving or receiving love. Unforgiveness will inevitably lead to bitterness. Sometimes we have unforgiveness towards ourselves, our spouse, or someone else that ends up having a negative effect on your marriage relationship. Do not allow that in your relationship. Choose forgiveness! Get healing help, if needed. This will free you up to give and receive love which will inevitably lead to joy.
Forgiveness requires humility. And let’s be honest, humility hurts which is why we don’t want anything to do with it. But to give or receive forgiveness requires humility. There was a day this week I had to apologize multiple times in the same day. It was humiliating! Forgiveness is never easy. Whether Vitaliy or myself is needing to forgive or be forgiven, the alternative of being separated from each other is just not worth holding on to our pride. We’d rather be enjoying each other! (Like running and laughing in the rain together! See photo.)

Those are just a few lessons I’ve been learning the last few months. I hope they help in some way. Like I said, forgiveness is not easy, but it’s oh so worth it! Let’s choose forgiveness and make marriage happen.

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