I don't normally publish posts like this because they are out of my comfort zone and I am also not structured in the way that I write, so this is going to be a bit different...but I was too excited not to share.

Chris and I have noticed that in the time we've been married, a lot of people come to us to talk about relationship stuff. I do not say that with even an ounce of pride, but rather we hope (and assume when people come to us) that people see Jesus in us and in our marriage and if they do..it's all Jesus and not much of us at all--but we play a big part in submitting to him. And it is an honor to get to talk to people we love about love! We cannot claim to have decades of marital experience, and we have been mocked before by older individuals who think we are naive and still rolling along on the waves of newlywed bliss. (Nothing says honeymoon phase like lowering your little baby girl into the ground. Ugh.) This notion is simply not true, and although there is value in years of experience, we are always happy to shed light on why WE love marriage so much right NOW and our CURRENT experience in being married. I can tell you that our love for one another has only grown since exchanging vows, and I believe the reason is because of what I will talk about in this post.
And for a final kicker- I like to tell people that my parents have been married for quite some time and STILL model the type of relationship that I will talk about here.

Those are my disclaimers. Criticize me if you will. (**What I have noticed, is that people who are unhappy in their relationships often like to project their unhappiness upon people who are happy. If it means making young couples feel like idiots for being young, or assuming older happy couples are being fake..it will happen one way or another.)

I figured I would share this not because I think it's groundbreaking, but because Chris and I struggled hardcore to find books and teachings on marriage (can be applied to dating too!) that we felt really hit the nail on the head...at least regarding the relationship that we were experiencing together. We sat and listened to terrible advice that didn't seem to apply to us, we read chapters of books that we thought were over the top or over complicated, and we ended up scrapping almost every single "Marital Preparation" book for one single and worthy resource: the Bible. I am NOT knocking all books out there..I'm sure there are plenty of amazing ones that never got recommended to us. But in our experience, when we really got down to what we were looking for...we found all that we wanted to aspire to in our relationship in the pages of scripture.

So, after so many attempts to find something that encapsulates what we have experienced in our relationship and marriage (outside of the Bible)...I was PUMPED to find a super easy to understand and stripped down teaching on marriage that I believe gets it right and really describes what Chris and I have found to be true in marriage. So here it is and I will briefly jot down the components to the "marriage house" and if even one person finds this helpful, my job here is done.