T-Minus 30 Days...

In my life, God usually teaches me things in chunks. You know... lots of little lessons within a period of time. Lately He has been teaching me about cooperation and working with others in relationship. Specifically, I have seen the most improvement in my relationship with Jen.

As we are 30 days away from the wedding, I am feeling extremely positive about where we are now. It is NOT because we've completely figured each other out, finally understand everything, and now are the perfect couple. It's because we're learning how to cooperate.

When we first got into our relationship, we both knew that we had a lot in common:

• A love for Jesus and community
  
• A love for kids
• A love for biology and sociology
• A love for reading and learning
  
• A love for organization and cleanliness
• A love for long talks on long walks

You'd think that it would be easy to cooperate with someone who is just like yourself! Unfortunately there was something else we had in common. Stubborn hearts. I always wanted to be right and she always wanted to be right. That sure doesn't work out well in a deep, intimate relationship, let me tell you.

Even when times are hard, with lots of arguing and disagreeing, we know it is God's plan for us to work through it. He gives us troubles in our lives so that we can grow and learn from them.

Sure, a few times in the past I doubted whether or not Jen was the right woman for me. When that happened, I turned my thoughts back to Jesus and the fact that He wants me to think about how I can glorify Him the best. Including in my relationship with Jen. Would marrying Jen glorify Jesus more than not marrying her? Yes. Oh, okay. It's that simple. Sweet.

But I remember that every relationship has struggles. Often, making a choice that I think glorifies God the best is actually harder than the other option. There is a purpose for our marriage relationship: His glorification. Jesus will be the glue that holds us together because we certainly can't hold ourselves together.

Right now, we're doing wonderfully! Our arguments are few and far between lately. The Holy Spirit is within our hearts, teaching us the right things to say and convicting us of the wrong things. Jen has been learning more ways to show me respect and I have been learning more ways to show her my love for her. I have to admit... this whole respect/love thing is a great idea. We've been working hard at it, and it works. God sure was thinkin' when He took out that rib.

Jesus has got a good thing going here. He transforms our hard hearts into soft, cooperative ones. Knowing that we have grown this much in our relatively short engagement, I am so pumped to see how Christ will join us together, for the rest of our lives, for His glory, as one flesh.