I’d love for us to become friends – so to get things started, here are a few facts about me that only my friends know…
- My husband and I have 6 kids, all ages 11 and under. So yeah, life right now is a bit crazy. But it never lacks for excitement as I learn about the things they really need to make it in life … (and it’s not Legos or fake jewelry, as they so often try to convince me.)
- I specialize in moving piles of laundry one room to another, consistently overflow anything boiling on my stove, and routinely burn whatever is in the oven. I recently went so far as to catch a piece of toast on fire. The bright side: I know my fire alarms work really well.
- I saw a glimpse of Jesus’ heart one day as a 19-year-old, when I sat in a Thai brothel with girls my age. My friend and I bought two girls for the night so we could take them to dinner and shower them with REAL LOVE. It was there that I realized there was nothing more that I wanted than to give God all of me.
- If I were choosing a vacation spot, it’d be somewhere warm and on the water, hands down.
- Going out to eat is my favorite sport, my love-language and my biggest hobby. If you want to win my heart, invite me out to lunch. It works every time.
- I got married when I was 20, after knowing my husband for only 10 months, and dating him for less than 5 months. Total craziness, I know. (see next bullet point…)
- But it was ok because Wyatt and I spent most of our first year of marriage in a tiny Sri Lankan village doing post-tsunami development work. That really helped in the “getting to know you” department.
- I have a deep aversion to parallel parking and parking garages. One too many incidents and close calls have left me scarred for life.
- Our family’s absolute favorite Christmas party is the one we get to host for lepers in India.
- On warm sunny days when my kids aren’t around, I roll the windows down and blare The Dixie Chicks. (Mostly because I haven’t bought CDs in ten years, and also because you can take the girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of a girl.)
- I love dreaming BIG. But I’m learning that the impact I want to make on the world doesn’t happen when I pursue impact. It happens when I pursue God.
- The thing that excites me most is inspiring others to experience the heart of God, be transformed by His love, and make a difference in the world.
And it all comes to this …
As I’ve traveled the world (from the bush tribes of Namibia, to the brothels of Thailand, to the streets of the Dominican Republic, to the orphanages of Romania, to Mother Theresa’s home for the dying in India, to the fishing villages of Sri Lanka) I’m left with this truth:
God’s heart is for individuals and and marriages and families to be restored to His REAL, TRANSFORMING LOVE. And for every part of their lives to be grounded in that love. In fact, I believe that’s the secret to global healing.
I am convinced that as we are daily changed and set free by God’s REAL LOVE, our lives will become a place where heaven and earth begin to overlap. I am also convinced that in the process of making us whole, God can heal what is broken and mend what needs fixing. That’s just what He does: in our hearts, our marriages and our communities.
So in this space, my prayer is that we discover REAL LOVE in Christ and allow His REAL LOVE to radically change everything about our REAL LIVES, and how we express love in our marriages, our families and our world.
PS-
Since we’re friends, you should know that on this site I believe that REAL LOVE has significant impacts on the topic of GREAT SEX. So weekly, I offer fresh, biblical ways of thinking about married sex, how we love as wives, and how to cultivate a honeymoon, heaven-on-earth marriage. Not because I’m a marriage expert, but because God has done a great work in my heart and mind as a wife, and the crucial, sometimes taboo topic of sex gets overlooked too often in the church.
So if you’re interested in growing that area of your marriage, stick around and we’ll chat about that too. To catch you up, this is one of my most popular posts where I explore what every young wife needs to know about her husband’s sex drive.