When we meet discouragement

Some days are all sparkles and rainbows and unicorns. Then some days you pour vitamin C-laden water all over your newish MacBook Air (insert my husband's ill-timed joke about my computer not getting a virus). The latter of which I did last week. I let it dry for 6 days and attempted to turn it back on this afternoon. Nothing. I don't know what I'll do yet and I don't really want to talk about it....

However, I will try to continue blogging as I'm able (I'm presently blogging on a borrowed laptop!).

Today, I was supposed to be at the monastery in Conyers spending the day in quiet reflection with the Lord. I was looking forward to praying my way through a long list of things and spending time in the Word. I was going to post some serene picture, like this:

I needed a reset before school starts back NEXT WEEK. But then I ruined the laptop last week, got behind on a magazine article and Nora got sick. Best laid plans, right?

It's hard not to be discouraged sometimes — especially when you don't understand why God wouldn't honor plans that prioritize Him. I've been trying to blog more in ways that glorify him and my trip to a holy place of worship almost certainly would have done the same. Alas, there are some things we get to know and other times that we simply must trust.

My friend, Emilee, and I were recently pondering this very question. Why, when we're walking in obedience to him, do we sometimes still get met with resistance — or slammed shut doors?

Then she read the devotional for July 28 in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and we both got goosebumps:

"We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end."

Ok, I'm going to spend the last 5 minutes of my sick child's nap in quiet reflection...

Guard your Marriages

Marriage is a lifetime commitment between spouses to continually rediscover each other.

Nearly five years into marriage, I am starting to understand that.

As I've talked with more people about marriage, I've realized that marriages fail because couples enter into the institution with some incorrect and dangerous assumptions.

For Jonathan and me, the first year of marriage wasn't the hardest — it was the easiest! Life was bliss! While he and I only dated a short time before we decided to get married (we'd been friends for years), we were a healthy amount afraid to enter into a commitment of that caliber. And why shouldn't we be? You can't know what you're getting into ahead of time. It's a leap of faith. It requires an immeasurable amount of God's grace and His spirit as two sinners navigate the broken road together.

Also, in the same way that Christians are promised persecution, marriage will inevitably be difficult — at least from time to time. I can promise that. It doesn't mean you married the wrong person — it only means you need to adjust your expectations to be happy.

How do you know when to get married then? Answer: When a Christian man and a Christian woman are ready to commit to the covenant of marriage for a lifetime (the book Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will helped me to make that decision for myself).

Elisabeth Elliot, the famous missionary and writer, wrote the book Let Me Be A Woman to her newly engaged daughter about the prospect of marriage. After providing her daughter a list of questions to ponder when considering marriage (conversation starters to make a couple consider whether they had common interests and were on the same page on foundational issues), Elliot concluded by adding, "It is a mutual commitment to a common belief that is the only solid base for lasting communion, in marriage or in any other fellowship. Anything less will not stand the test of living."

The nature of a marriage changes necessarily as you settle in over the years. I want to share a few of the valuable lessons I've learned:

• I know it sounds cliche, but love is indeed a verb. Sometimes you are doing acts of love even when the feelings aren't overflowing in your heart. Sometimes you will clean your house unto the Lord so that you won't hold resentment against another person. Pray that those feelings of love that ebb and flow will always be revived again. I personally think that God loves to answer that prayer because it's certainly in line with his will!

• Look for ways to serve each other. Uplift, encourage and pray for each other. Be grateful for the positives about your spouse while always working on yourself. It's all too easy to find another's faults when two imperfect people are living a messy life together. Love must first flow vertically from the Lord before you can pour it out more perfectly into horizontal relationships. You'd be amazed what this will accomplish if you can put it into practice.

• Whether through apathy or rebellion, you will discover that you've put your marriage down from time to time. You must pick it back up. Daily pick it up. The Bible calls these sins of commission and omission. You will do a lot of both in marriage. Repent and ask for forgiveness. Extend forgiveness where forgiveness is due.

• Remember to fight FOR your marriage, not against your spouse. Your spouse is not your enemy no matter how convenient it is to blame the person nearest you. Satan is your enemy and he works to destroy Christian marriages.

• The hard truth of the matter is, even when your spouse isn't in the right and isn't walking with the Lord and isn't meeting your expectations, you have to find a way to honor him/her anyway. That's a picture of the Gospel.

• Pray for more love — to love better — to BE better yourself. Pray for God to guard against your marriage so that it will be a picture of the Gospel, how Christ laid down his life for his bride, the church.

Couples who honor this commitment and allow God to be at the center of their marriage will nourish a beautiful relationship with their best friend. You will actively build a better love than you ever thought possible.


"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage." ~ Martin Luther

Flown the Coop!

Guys, I've felt convicted that I guest blogged for a church friend recently when I've been neglecting my own blog!

If you didn't catch that blog, check it out here!

When last I left you, I was happily exploring the world of homesteading. Since then I had setbacks with mono (4 months of it!) and a nasty finger injury. Oh, and I also escaped to Seaside, FL for a week with my wonderful family! I'm happy to report that I'm all-round healing.

But, back to homesteading: I think you can officially say I'm all in with this hippie business. I'm trying to simplify my life. Be content with the basics again. Raise as much of my family's food as possible in order to reduce the amount of processed food we consume. I also want to teach Nora about working hard with her hands.

In addition to homesteading, the Melvilles have been doing a LOT of home remodeling, which I'll be sharing here soon.  My garden is doing well considering I got NOTHING out of it in previous years (wrong location -- come to find out, sunlight is a necessity!). I'm growing okra, tomatoes, squash, peppers, blueberries, jalapeños, basil & a little thing I call my mojito plant (aka mint!) ;-)

Oh, yeah, and now our family owns four chickens. "Own" being the key word. They don't live with us. The City of Newnan frowns on that type thing (boo!). But we paid for them, we get to name them (I'm vying for Spurgeon, Keller, Bonheoffer and Piper) and we will soon be enjoying yummy eggs. They will be permanently housed at my friends' homestead. Nora will have frequent visitation rights, too! I can't wait to milk my first goat, too! I'm so grateful for this opportunity for her to learn more about this earth and how generations before made do!

Let me know if you have any good chicken names (I mean, what could possibly be better than what I picked??)!