Happy Birthday, Mikayla L’Amour aka “Sweetie” Eight years ago, on an overcast and cool morning, at 10:27 a.m., our Heavenly Father blessed Tonia and me with our third child, a baby girl. We named her Mikayla L’amour (The Love – Thanks grandma Daisy). She weighed 7 pounds and 4 ounces and was 18 inches long.  As I captured this moment that morning, my eyes were filled with tears of joy and heart was exploding with worship, praise, and thanksgiving. The prayer you see written in my journal, is the same prayer I continue to pray today.

After eight years, my heart continues to explode with joy as I am watching and enjoying my “Sweetie” grow up really fast.

As I have watched her grow, her are a few of my observations: She loves Jesus, her Day with Dad, getting her hair done with her mother (getting pretty expensive), reading (The Abbey Hayes series is one of her favs), memorizing Scripture, stuffed animals, cheese pizza, me reading to her at night and tucking her in, playing the Go Diego Go game, I Spy Memory Game, Trouble, and Apples to Apples, trying to hang with her brothers, her friends (Joy, Julia, Nadia, Torrie, and Coletta), her dream of being a Vet, watching iCarly, Big Time Rush, and True Jackson, VP.

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Yesterday my wife and I had a great conversation, and it reminded me of why I love and appreciate her so much. She told me that sometimes I am so busy and focused on ministry, writing and preaching, that everything else seems like a blur to me. She said during those times, somebody has to take care of the blur, and she would be the one who would take care of the blur (My definition in the context of our conversation: any small but absolutely important detail that helps your family, your life or your business function most effectively). Wow! I was humbled.

I am more and more convinced that one of my wife’s greatest strengths, to help our five part body work most effectively, is “taking care of the blur.” Here is a simple and non-exhaustive example: A couple weeks ago I traveled to Houston for six days to preach a family conference for a long time mentor. While I was away focused on ministry and preaching, she, while she worked her regular job at the community college, was taking care of “the blur.” She was taking care of the blur of arranging for our kids to be picked up for and from school, meeting with and talking with our Realtor,  checking on our flight costs for our vacation, and taking our kids to music practice. Man, she really does take care of the blur. This is vital to helping our five part body function most effectively. I honestly don’t know where I would be and where our family would be if Tonia did not take care of “the blur.” Thanks, Honey Brown for taking care of “the blur.”

Who takes care of “the blur” for you in your Life? Family? Business? What are some examples of them taking care of “the blur?” In what ways can you show your appreciation for them this week?

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I wanted to share this with you on our 15th year anniversary, but I did not have a copy with me in Aruba, plus the server was down at the resort. When Tonia and I were married 15 years ago, on the 10th day of July, 1994 @ 3:25 p.m., this is what I said to my bride:

To the beautiful one I stand before
It is you and you alone
I promise to love, cherish and adore

I make a solemn but joyful pledge this day,
before God and men
to love you in every way

It’s a love that is not wrapped in empty words,
but one that is seen
and not just heard

My vow this day is to provide and give
And a godly life before God, you and our children,
I will strive to live

I promise to wrap your delicate frame
in my arms when you are confused and afraid
and constantly remind you that His grace
is greater than our need.

I vow to look to and depend on the Lord of Hosts
and when an army of troubles come
in His power I will boast.

My love is tainted and incomplete
But in our most difficult times, when it will be hard to love,
I promise his love and grace we will seek.

I promise to trust Christ to guide the vessel of our marriage safely to port
Because never a mission have I known him to fail or abort

In the mind of God, from the very start,
Man and wife should become one flesh and never part.

So, to you and you only I will now cleave
and vow this day, except for death, to never leave

So when eyes are dimming and hair is graying
May I be found ever saying
I’m committed, to thee alone, I’m committed

When steps are shortened and beauty fading,
May I be found ever saying
I’m committed, to thee alone, I’m committed.

When these eyes are forever closed and my life’s breath cease,
May the testimony of my life be:
He was committed. To her alone, he was committed.

Over the last fifteen years, I have attempted to be faithful to live out these vows. But, I know I have failed, many times, (more than I care to recall), in living up to these lofty words. Today, I am working harder and harder to live in obedience to God’s role for me as a husband and embody these words that I spoke over 15 years ago.

What vows – marital or otherwise – have you made? Are you living up to the vows you made? What’s been the most difficult and the most rewarding part in living up to the vows you made?

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Last night, after dinner, my wife and I engaged in a deep conversation about our relationship. The magic of Aruba will make you do that. We talked about the last fifteen years – when we first got married, the ups and downs, the good and the not so good, the high points and the low points, the hilarious and the serious times, of our marriage. As we sat on the beach, listening to waves crashing onto shore and looking up at the moonlit night, we talked about how God had given a measure of success in our marriage (a far cry from being perfect). We have had a level of success because of: 

How much work we’ve had to put into it

How many adjustments and compromises we’ve had to make,

How we’ve had to ask forgiveness and be forgiven,

How many times we’ve had to let go of our own agenda and make the other the priority, even when we did not want to, and

How we’ve had to wrap the towel around our waist and wash each other’s feet.

It was really a great conversation (We’ve only just begun). From our conversation, I concluded this: We don’t find our soul mates (I’m not knocking those who say they have found theirs). I know “finding our soul mate” implies such compelling compatibility that it feels like this person is the other half of your soul and God created this person just for you, to complete you. For some, it also implies that the relationship will be as close to perfect as possible. I think finding our soul mate is fantasy, one from which life and reality will wake you. I think we choose if we are going to love as Jesus loved and who we’re going to love that way. I think we choose to do the every day work of love and become what we need to become to build up and complete our spouse and significant other. It doesn’t happen automatically because we say we’ve found our soul mate. This kind of love happens through intentional:

Hard work

Effort

Commitment

Adjustments

Compromise

Sacrifice

Transparency

Honesty

Humility

Toppling personal walls we’ve erected,

Asking forgiveness and learning to forgive and not holding grudges

Learning to love what he/she loves

Making him/her the priority

After fifteen years, we are convinced that love is not an emotional noun – something you feel; love is an active verb – something you do. I believe when you do the work of love, the feelings of love will follow. You don’t find a soul mate; you become one. 

Do you agree or disagree that you don’t find a soul mate but you become a soul mate through choosing to love a person the way Jesus loved? Why? 

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Over the last several weeks I have been dying – dying to me, you see. Several weeks ago my wife left her cushy part time job at the community college to work full-time again at one of the local high schools. I was really excited at first because the extra money would allow us to implement “operation pay off the house in two years.” I was excited until she had to leave home early, stay at the school late, and burn the midnight oil to put grades in (I knew there was a catch when they said “you won’t have any extra duties.”). What does her new, stressful schedule mean for me? It means death to me. You see, I liked my cushy, part-time father job, but now I have to: make sure my kids have done their homework (right), get up earlier to feed them (eating breakfast is so over rated), make sure they have washed their faces, brushed their teeth, packed their bags, fix their lunches, drive them to school (I am praying for snow days this year), flex my schedule and cut my day short to pick them up from school, go up to the school if they get sick or forget a lunch or homework (it has all happened in the last four weeks), drop off and pick up my oldest son Tuesday and Thursday from a really cool after school science program, of which he has been part for the last three years, and make sure they have dinner in the evenings. Whew! Over the last several weeks I have been dying – dying to me, you see. I really like my personal time, but these last several weeks have taught me that dying to self means that my time must be more theirs and less mine. Dying to self is painful and many times it feels torturous. However, I am gaining new insight; dying a little means I will live, really live a lot. The living a lot part? Well, my wife is less stressed and more focused, She has spoken my love language more often (words of affirmation), the love-making has been “off the chain,” operation pay off the house is in full-effect and we are experiencing a oneness of which the Bible speaks. So, I am asking God, these days, to help me learn to die a little each day, ratify my wedding vows more and more with true sacrifice, and to thank and celebrate my wife every chance I get for having done what I am doing now, for so many years without complaining (that much). I am dying to live.

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