abandoned to Christ.

Twenty years ago today, the Lord chose to unite me and my beloved husband together in holy matrimony. We were both young, naive about marriage and still a bit prideful and self-serving. Naturally our pride deceived us into believing otherwise. The first several years of our marriage were rocky as we both tried to mold one another into our own image of what we thought a husband/wife looked like. With one child, and conversations about divorce, we were nearly done. But God's plans are never thwarted. Never. The Lord decided that we would be married until death do us part and have two sons with whom He would also use for His glory. As we've learned, our marriage isn't about the two of us—it's about Christ. Out of God's great mercy and compassion for the young fools we were, He granted us the wisdom we finally asked for and committed to love one another always second to Christ. We took divorce off the table and resolved to keep Christ as our First Love; ...

As Christians, most of us know the well-rehearsed verse "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,..." (James 1:2).  But most of us don't really understand what it means to consider our trials a joy—especially when the reality of it finally sets in and takes us down a road we never meant to travel...if we let it. I'm nearly seven weeks out from my latest surgery; the worst and most painful experience I can remember. And now, at last, the reality of it all is finally beginning to set in: nights with interrupted sleep, the confinement of a brace, the weakness I notice when I don't have it on, the fatigue...oh, the fatigue. Yes, it's all starting to become very old and very real, making the "joy" in this trial appear as if it's impossible to grasp. But God promises everything is not as they appear (2 Cor 4:16-18). So I look to Him and not to that which I can only see. "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From...