Real Marriage By: Mark and Grace Driscoll

My Husband Jonathan and I decided to read the Driscoll's new book "Real Marriage". I am super excited about it. I really enjoy Mark's teachings. Jonathan each week will post his thoughts on the chapter of the week and then I will comment on it and like wise I will do my best to share my thought on this blog and he in return will comment on my thoughts. Okay so here I go.


Week 1 Chapter 1: Who ever said marriage was easy was a liar. Being married has been the hardest thing I have done thus far in my wee 26 years of life. While I was reading the first chapter my eyes and heart were open to so many things that I do to hurt Jonathan and for some reason I keep him at a distance. Reading the Driscoll's story really hit home in many ways. I was raised in a christian home with parent that love Jesus and were zealous to do ministry, better yet live ministry in more ways then one. My dad was a full time student at Multnoma Bible College in Portland Oregon and my mom worked odd jobs as well as running her own store. That was their day life. Their night life was lived as a Christian Rock Band named "True Faith". I remember as a small child going to their concerts and being so proud that my parents were "Rocking the Universe for Jesus" (which btw was a title of one of their songs. Cool Right?) I myself quickly went to work convincing myself that I needed to save my friends and family and the only way to do that is share the gospel. I lived most of my life believing that I could save people. When I was 8 years old I brought my best friend Young, who was this beautiful, frail little Vietnamese girl, to Christ. I remember believing with all my heart that if she didn't know Jesus as her Lord and Savior that she would die and go to hell. It was my mission to "save her". So I sat down with her and led her in the sinners prayer and we cried and hugged for a long time. Since that day I lived my life believing that God created me for the mission field. As the years passed I found myself alone caught up in a life full of secret sin that I could not shake, all the while trying to be the good little Christian girl my mom and dad taught me to be. Through out middle and high school I believed lies that in many ways destroyed who I thought I was. I did all I could to busy myself so that I would no long be ruled by sin. It was a struggle. I am grateful I had the knowledge of Christ that I did other wise I'm not sure I would be alive today. By the time I hit my Sophomore year my parents were falling apart. They were my world and I didn't know what to do. I became very depressed to the point of not wanting to live anymore. I clung to what I believed because there was no one beside me. All I had was Jesus. He seen me through. When I graduated I worked for a few years then I went off to YWAM. In YWAM I learned so many things about myself and about who God is. I learned that I couldn't save people, that only Christ could working in and through people such as myself. It was totally life changing. When I finally made it back home after 6 months of learning and missions, I fell apart all over again. I expected for life to be easy now that I had the tools to bring the gospel to the world, I was sadly mistaken. I came home to a broken and hurting family, my church was torn in two, and my friends were checked out. I did what I could helping my dads church out, but it wasn't enough. We ended up moving back to Bend and I found a job at the local Bible Book Store. I was doing good for the most part. I started my own ministry and I felt like I was making a difference. That quickly changed when my ministry fell apart and my family was struggling. A year or so passed by like a blink of an eye. One night I was working at the Bible Book Store when Jonathan walked in. I was excited to see him. I knew him from high school, he was totally different. At that time in my life I wanted nothing more then to be swept off my feet by the man of my dreams lol. Sadly he was taken. He had a beautiful fun-loving son that I grew to adore. Jonathan came in time to time and I was intrigued by his knowledge and passion of and for Christ. I would spend time asking him questions and debating controversial things with him. The funny thing was that he was married to a girl I went to school with in another town. I didn't know things were not working out for them until one sad night when Jonathan came in to the store with his son and told me that she had left them. He was hurting and it broke my heart. Some weeks passed and I started going to his bible study. I knew all that he was going through so I tried to help him and his son all that I could. At that time we were taking classes from the same school and I was struggling and Jonathan mentioned that he could help me out if I wanted. I was unsure how his soon to ex-wife would take it so I asked him to get her permission before I agreed. Soon after we were study buddy's. We did our best to push the emotions aside but the more we spent together the more I fell for him. One night we met up and he told me he had a vision and asked me to pray about it. He refused to tell me detail he just asked me to pray and ask God to reveal to me who was in the vision. So I did for two weeks I prayed about who was in this vision. When I finally got my answer I was terrified. I for two days went back and forth telling myself that I was making it up, until Jonathan asked if God revealed anything to me. I didn't want to tell him. It took all my strength to answer him and I finally said "It was me that was in your vision." When he said yes, I wanted to cry. I didn't know what it meant, I didn't know what to do. We decided to pursue a relationship after his divorce was finalized although it didn't work out that way. The first several months we just spent a lot of time together getting to know each other, then as time passed one thing led to another, which led to another, you get the picture. I was shame ridden. I didn't know how to breath living with the knowledge of what I had done. I the good girl of the family ruined my whole reputation, not to mention my relationship with Christ. I did what I could and the truth finally came out. I became pregnant and didn't know what to do other than move in with Jonathan. We did our best to live with our choices. He received word that his divorce was finalized and we jump out of bed and rushed to the court house. The courts granted us permission to marry and so we had a sort of shot gun wedding. The next day 2.0 was born. Now here we are. It hasn't been easy. Jonathan has gone through some hard times in his relationship with God and with his use to be friends. I as well have had to cut ties with many of my friends that I still love and care about, however I am working on my relationship with God and I am blessed every day. We as a couple are still trying to figure this whole marriage thing out and how it balances with the rest of our lives as parents, workers, son, daughter, and as friends. I can honestly say that no I don't always like Jonathan and no I don't always understand him or agree with him, however I do always love him and he is my best friend and lover. I think my favorite part about being married to Jonathan is that he truly is my best friend and I get to spend every day with him.


I know this post was long but I hope that even part of my story that I shared might help you or give you hope.


If you would like to share your thoughts I would love to hear them or if you need any prayer let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Moms, babies, sleep...

I never knew how hard it was to be a mom. Now that I have two kids, I find myself wornout. I tell my youngest that he gives me a run for my money all the time lol. My oldest isn't that much work. He feeds himself, baths himself, dresses himself, and most importantly can entertain himself. My youngest isn't there yet as he is only 6 months old. Babies are hard to keep up with. I am glad he's pretty easy compared to some babies. He's mostly happy and has finally figured how to get around by rolling and crawling. The hard part about him is sleep. I know that I need to have some regulated schedule but I'm just not organized enough. When it come to sleep he does what he wants. Which is why for the last 6 months I have been severally sleep deprived! I have yet to figure out how to get this sleep stealing baby to sleep through the night. I'm hoping he will figure it out on his own so I don't have to go through the horrid fits in the middle of the night. I hope its sooner rather than latter.

Making your bed...

I have been trying to teach my three year old the importance of responsibility. I have been teaching him things like picking up after himself, putting his clothes away, and making his bed. Yesterday October 30th 2011 will forever be a delightful memory. After picking up his clothes and blankets, I asked him to make his bed. A little while later I asked "did you make it right?" He responded "no mama I made it left." As me and my husband sat laughing, my three year old said "mama I made it left okay." I said "okay" between chuckles.

How technology has changed my life...

<p>From smartphones to Skype my life has been forever impacted. I use my Droid everyday to search the internet, email, read the Bible and playgames. Whoever invented the smartphone was/is a genius and I am greatful that you invented it. The same goes with Skype I am greatful for you inventing it. A few years ago I had the chance of a lifetime to go to Thailand and China. I used a payphone once twice but most of the time I used Skype and it was such a blessing.

My hobbies

I love to cook. I attended culinary all four years of high-school and competed Evey chance I had. I also love coffee. I was a Batista for five years and loved every second of it. Now my hobbies consist of cleaning, laundry, doing dishes, and changing diapers lol. I love being a mom. I never knew it was so hard. However I would trade it for anything.

Technology...

 Find a technology article on slashdot.com (or a similar site) and write a paragraph on it.


The Amazon Locker...?




http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/13/8305718-mysterious-amazon-locker-system-live-in-seattle-nyc 


Amazon is a very interesting company to begin with. Like Apple and Google, Amazon has created an online shopping and exploring experience. It always amazes me at what the new invention of the week is. This week its Amazon Lockers. What are they you might be asking. They are essentially a PO BOX just with out the fee and PO part.
According to the article Amazon has not yet decided to really go all out with their locker system. They are just in testing mode only found in Seattle and New York thus far. So how it works is you order something off their site and depending on where you are located you can choose to have it shipped to a Amazon Locker near you which are conveniently located in random stores that we already use on a regular basis. How sweet is that. Its essentially Amazon turned FedEx. If you would like more information please use the attached link and you will find the article with a video too. What are your thoughts?

CIS120 @ COCC

 For the next weeks you must create one entry that includes your thoughts about class, homework, content or process that you liked, ideas for improvements, etc. This is freeform so use it like a journal.




I like the CIS120 class. It is very informative. Before taking the class I thought I knew computers for the most part, but I have come to find out that I really don't know as much as I thought I did. Its hard to keep up with any of my classes due to having a new baby and a 3 year old. I can barely keep my head above water. One thing that I really like about the class is how straight forward the assignments are. At times it seems like there is to much homework to keep up with but when I finally get a chance to sit down and focus on what needs to be done it goes by fast and I sit back wondering why I was so overwhelmed by thinking about doing the work. One thing that I would improve is the class set up. I like how Liberty University does their online classes. No matter what class you take the set up is all the same. Every class literally looks the same. Its organized and neat, simple to navigate. With COCC not so much. It is very confusing going from one class to the next because every class looks different. The assignments are found in random folders (mainly my health class is like this), its very confusing to say the least. Well thats all I have to say right now... (baby calls)