Across Five Augusts

It was nearly five years ago today that I found myself in nervous anticipation as our wedding guests arrive. I was in a little storage room near the front of the church waiting for the wedding to begin. My dad opened the door and asked me how I was doing. What he said next was one of the things I remember the most from that morning. He said "Matt, you put that girl on a pedestal and do everything you can for her. If I hear that you ever take her off of that pedestal, then you need to be ready to deal with me." No sooner had he finished his sentence, and he had left. The minister and I exchanged glances, surprised by my dad's words.

I had thought that he had come in to give me kind words of wisdom, to encourage me to stay calm, or to let me know what a great decision I was making. After he left I felt like the mob had just told me not to do anything to mess this up.  Looking back on it, my dad was giving me some incredible words of wisdom. God was blessing me with the most incredible woman on the planet. He was giving me a ministry of the utmost importance (Loving my wife).  My duty was to love, serve, and sacrifice everything for her. What a privilege.

Tomorrow is Alicia and my 5th wedding anniversary. We started dating way back in 2001. Its been an amazing decade of time getting to know her, and the past 5 years have been such a wonderful adventure. In that time we have bought a house, invested  five wonderful years at our church, had our first child, have another one on the way, and each day we sail the uncharted waters of our marriage.

As I think back to our first five years of marriage, I am struck by a few truths and things that I think are just as valuable as my dad's wedding day advice:
- No matter how much you know about your spouse there is always more to learn. I think that is so exciting to know!
- God has placed you in the life of your spouse and wants you to sacrifice everything for him/her just like Jesus loved the church. It will always be worth it too. To think otherwise is not just dangerous, it's flat out crazy.
- God will find the most amazing ways to speak to you and love you throu your spouse. It's an incredibly humbling and wonderful experience.
- Marriage is such a great adventure that will take all your talents, time and energy, but just like any great adventure,  there is treasure to be found.

My wife has made so many sacrifices for me. She is constantly a blessing to me. I hope I have held true to my father's words and have kept her on that pedestal. I hope I continue to as well.

Just yesterday she told me that she loves her job in labor and delivery at the hospital. Before she took that job we prayed and sought advice because we knew it would be a huge challenge for both of us for her to transition to a new role at the hospital. It was a dream of hers to work on labor and delivery.  So after much prayer and preparation we went for it. I learned to balance my schedule more so that I could spend more time at home with Zeke, and take on added responsibilities at the house. She learned to change her sleep schedule, get even more done in less time, and how to get ahead on things like grocery shopping. We both learned how to communicate better, how to take advantage of every moment we had as a family, and how to fight to make time to continue to grow our relationship with each other.  Our journey is far from over, but through our pursuit of one of my wife's dreams, we found some of God's treasure in our adventure.

Thanks Alicia for going on life's great adventure with me!

Another Super Bowl Commercial from Our Contest and Random Stuff

This video was done by one of our Middle School groups. As you can tell I think they had WAY too much fun filming this!

I'll be posting other commercials from our students' commercial contest at Rel Community. Here are some other things that I hope make you laugh, brighten your day or grow you in some way:

VINCE LOMBARDI
For those of you who might not know the Super Bowl trophy is named the Lombardi Trophy after former coach Vince Lombardi. As crazy as it might sounds, someone with the same name was arrested on Super Bowl Sunday for shoplifting. He doesn't look too happy does he?

WORLDVIEW 101
A friend of mine who is currently a teacher in Bolivia sent me this website, and looks like a really informative and valuable tool. It has tons of information and articles about pretty much everything. If you are a Christian who wants to go a little deeper in their knowledge of God or other worldviews, this would be a great resource.

MARRIED IN MINISTRY
Whether you are in full time ministry, its something you are pursuing, or you just want to know more about what life in ministry is like, I came across a blog interview that has some great insights as to what it is like for the wife of a full-time minister. The interview is with Lauren Chandler who is married to Matt Chandler who is the Lead Minister at Village Church in Texas.