Small Beginnings

If you’re just joining us, welcome! We’re just over halfway through our ½ marathon blog challenge with CMBA! So far we’ve shared tips on ways to intentionally relax (even if only for a few moments!), prepare for the inevitable, bless your wife, and fight against sin…together. To read all the posts in this category so far, click here.

When David and I were discussing what we wanted to share, one of the first things he said was “pray and read together.” Now, I know what you’re thinking…at least I think I do. Prior to having our babies I was convinced we would have no down time. We didn’t. Ok, we had some snatches here and there but nothing like what we had before we were blessed with our munchkins. Then, we could go to the prayer meetings and spend time reading book after book in our CCEF online course we were taking. After we had them, for many months, we collapsed when crying babies were finally settled to sleep. We knew we had a very short while before we’d be forcing our eyes open to begin it all again at 4am (one of my favorite tips on this is coming soon!!!). Our prayers consisted of the short ones we uttered throughout the day. And our reading now was made up of trying to read with blurry eyes the emails at work (for David) and Facebook statuses while nursing (for me. obviously.).

Excellent resources!!!

Life is still super overwhelming even as the babies have reached a year old. But we’ve moved into a little bit more of a routine. We now know when our “down moments” might be. And while there aren’t many of them, we are working really hard to make praying and reading together a priority. We’ve found that it is easier for us to start small and grow from there.* So we’ve set aside one night each week to pray together and one night to read together. During the week, we keep track of all the various prayer requests we come across (through conversations, Facebook, etc.) and go through the list to see who the Lord would have us lift up to Him together. (It’s been amazing to see the Lord answering prayers! So encouraging!!) And currently we are reading “What Did You Expect??” by Paul David Tripp and “Teach Them Diligently” by Lou Priolo. We’ve decided that, for us, a couple of chapters each week is a realistic and rather easily met goal. It will obviously take us quite some time to complete both books, but we felt that it would be helpful to read something that focused on us growing together as a couple and something that helped us to develop our parenting goals and desires (since as yet we have few!).

Of course, we both hope to grow in both these areas. I am an avid reader, he is not. He is very disciplined in going before the Lord, I am not. And yet, we both have seen the blessing of spending this time together as we have each grown in the areas in which we are weaker. As our children grow, we hope to lengthen our little family devotional each night at the dinner table from reading one story in “The Jesus Storybook Bible” by Sally Lloyd-Jones to including prayer time with them. For now, David and I are grateful for the ability to come to the Lord together to both talk with Him and to learn how He has called us to live.

* Just a quick note…if, while reading this, you were tempted with condemnation that this seems impossible or overwhelming, let me encourage you to simply have a conversation with your spouse about what the Lord is giving the two of you grace for – maybe it looks nothing like the above. Maybe it’s way more than the above! Having a baby is nothing like what you could ever have imagined – it’s more wonderful and more challenging!! And there is much grace as you adjust during this season. So please do not feel condemnation over what you are or you aren’t doing. Comparison wasn’t the goal here, sharing ideas was! We trust the Lord to lead you as He did us. Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of the Lord! Amen?

Day 8 of the marriage blog challenge from CMBA. To see other CMBA bloggers, click here.