Today’s post is from our friend Angela Hunter. We met Angela and her husband Scott last fall at the Lifeway Festival of Marriage Event. We instantly hit it off with them. Their story of redemption and restoration is a miracle. They lead a marriage ministry called Marriage On Fire. We are honored to have Angela share with us today.
You can “Like” them on Facebook:
You can check out their ministry web site: Marriage On Fire
We so grateful to have Scott and Angela as a part of our RefineUs marriage coaching team.
________________________________
Almost seventeen years ago I said “I do” and I thought marriage would be easy. Scott and I had so much love and passion for each other from the very start, so what could be so difficult…right?
I don’t have a clue as to why I believed marriage would be easy. Perhaps because my parents, who will celebrate 45 years of marriage this July, made it look so effortless. Maybe it was my grandparents, who will celebrate 70 years, also this July. I am deeply grateful for the legacy established in my family of long and happy marriages but I’m pretty sure I thought marriage would be easy because I was just plain naïve. Scott and I loved each other so much, what could be so hard about that?
Insert REALITY somebody please! Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, about our marriage has been easy…
Scott and I are a blended family so when I married him, I gained a beautiful six year old daughter, Amanda. We knew absolutely nothing about blending a family. We closed on our house the week we got married. We knew nothing about budgeting or financial planning. We were married for only three months and I got pregnant with our daughter, Kailey. Twenty-three months after Kailey was born, God blessed us with another daughter, Courtney. When Scott and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary we realized that I had been pregnant exactly ½ of our marriage up until that point!
Between year 2 and 3 our marriage was the polar opposite of easy. We didn’t know how to communicate with each other anymore. We argued about everything. We were in debt. Resentment was building. Unbeknownst to me, Scott had an extramarital affair during this time. Easy was long gone…
Six years into our marriage we were tired of doing things our way. My skewed vision of “easy” translated to zero effort on my part in our marriage. We were tired of being selfish, prideful and unwilling to make changes. Scott gave his heart to Christ and committed to becoming the spiritual leader of our home. We had to dig deep, push our sleeves up, and become intentional about working toward a healthy marriage. God was leading the way but it wouldn’t be easy.
So, in the beginning I did think marriage would be easy, but the reality is that marriage is so much better than easy. Healthy marriages require hard work, sacrifice, discomfort, thought, reflection and two people totally sold out to Christ. That’s way better than easy in my book.
