After overcoming many different obstacles in the beginning of our marriage; with our children, family, living arrangements not going as planned, jobs moving, becoming a stay at home mom, financial problems which resulted in moving in with my parents…we knew God had some type of plan for us. We weren’t sure what God was doing but we knew that He has a plan and it was going to result in a testimony…
And although I KNOW for a fact that He isn’t finished with us, I know that Darrick and I are embarking on another area of how God wants to use us…and that is through a marriage ministry at our church.
Now a couple of years ago, I presented this idea to Darrick and he was game. We asked around at church to see who would be interested but nothing really got off the ground because shortly after I was pregnant with twins (and if you’ve been pregnant before you know pregnancy will change up any plans, and adding an extra baby to the mix will definitely slow you down)… but a delay is not a denial!
Fast forward to NOW…our Pastor approached us with the idea of starting a marriage ministry. Little did he know this is something that we had been wanting to do for some time now, just couldn’t find the time along with everything else that we had going on.
But when God says its time…you don’t ask questions because you know that He is going to equip you with everything you need to complete your assignment. I still felt like I could’ve used a little more time but we are here and moving forward…
A few years back we read Uncommon Marriage together and completed the Bible Study…
This time around we have started with…
Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages…reason we started with this is because if you don’t properly understand HOW your mate loves and how your mate receives love then you cant properly love them.
But aside from learning more about marriage in the form of teaching a class we have learned a lot about each other, there have been primarily two things that have stuck out…
Working Together & Compromise
Darrick and I have never worked together. We both are very involved in church, but not in the same things, so we usually just play the supportive wife/husband role when its the others time to “shine”! HA! We both Usher and I am over the Junior Ushers and he helps with that and he’s the new President of the Men’s Ministry at church. However, we have never worked together as partners on a project besides something family related. Working together on a ministry is new for us; sometimes we agree with each other’s thoughts and ideas but sometimes we bump heads. Sometimes we both feel like we have the BEST idea for something and isn’t backing down. This is usually when we find ourselves bumping heads and needing to find a compromise or take a break!
In learning to work together, we have realized that doesn’t mean that we need to work together every step of the way. I may not be interested in working on things right away, whereas Darrick may want to get things done NOW. If that’s the case, he usually starts working on things and he will bring me up to speed later. Don’t force it!
No matter what is going on in your marriage or how busy things get you will always learn new ways of compromising. And for us that is the key to making things work…COMPROMISE!!! Everything cant be my way or his way, but we can take from both ways and be just as effective!
Have you and your husband worked together on a project?
If so, what tips can you share?
