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“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

Ephesians 5: 31-32 

In today’s society, where the focus on self is thrust upon us in almost every facet of life, the idea of becoming one with another is hard to grasp. To be one with another means that we let go of our selfish ambitions and become a new creation with our spouse with a single purpose; to walk with our Lord and to bring Him glory though our union.

It has taken Will and I quite a few years to really understand what this means. I think that we both understood that when we got married we were meshing two personalities into a relationship, but neither of us quite grasped what it looked like to live a Christian marriage.

The first few years of or marriage were really good; as many marriages seem to be. But once the thrill wore off, and our old selfish natures started to creep back in and we started to go through a really rough patch in our marriage. We had big fights frequently; over big things and not such big things. During this time I kept asking myself, "what had happened to the beautiful marriage where we got along so well?"

For years we battled each other, not realizing that we were seeing each other as the enemy and failing to love each other as the Bible called us to. We went to Christian marriage counseling, which usually wrapped up with us fighting and driving home in separate cars. I remember one weekend when we attended Family Life’s 'Weekend to Remember' and had one of our most epic fights to date. It was when I was sitting on the floor of the hotel bathroom, crying out to God to help us, that I saw how broken our marriage was.

We were going through the motions of loving each other, but we were failing to grasp that in order to truly love each other, we had to put God first and love Him. When we both started to do this, He transformed our marriage into a beautiful relationship where we care deeply for one another and love each other more than the day we were married. This didn’t happen overnight and took a lot of commitment to not give up on our marriage, no matter how bad things got. We were both committed to staying married, and during the hardest times, when I found myself thinking life would be easier just to give up, I kept my eyes on God and the commitment that I had made to him, as well as to Will, to stay married.

We certainly don’t have a perfect marriage and still have arguments occasionally, but I have noticed that these happen more when we aren’t spending daily time with the Lord, studying His Word, and in prayer and scripture memorization. When we are both intentional about putting God first, our love blossoms like the sweet flower it is, and when we let the business of day-to-day life take over, our marriage withers. We have also learned that we have to be intentional about putting our marriage first. Our hectic schedules of work and raising young kids can make it easy to let our marriage take a back seat, but we have found that when we do this, we start to drift apart. However, when we are intentional and fight against the pressures of this world in order to spend time with one another, we have discovered that we are recharged and more in-tune.

We hope that if you are reading this, and it resonates with you, that you and your spouse will set aside some time for your marriage and join us for Marriage Matters!  We strongly believe that whether you have been married 1 year, 60 years, or any number in between, that any marriage can benefit from bring intentional in putting God first and making time for each other.

Have you ever reached the end of yourself?  No, I mean really.  Like the actual end.  Sure, we reach the end all the time…the end of our ropes, the end of our patience, and any number of things.  But have you ever found yourself exasperated, searching for answers that won’t come, and feeling devoid of hope in a way that seems inescapable?  It is probably something that you’ll only experience a handful of times, and I’d go out on a limb and say that it will be or has been a defining moment in your life.  Whether defining to the good, or to the bad, the question of how to navigate it should be at the surface for believers…unless you want to just live under a rock. But then you’d probably still quickly get to the end of yourself, and, well, you’d be under a rock.

In his book, The End Of Me, Pastor Kyle Idleman talks about the blessing that comes from finding the end of yourself.  Wait, what?  A blessing?  Hold on, and fact check me on this.  If you’ve experienced the sheer terror that accompanies being at the end of yourself, finding it a blessing seems like a stretch.  Maybe even a patronizing stretch.  Yet, his case for why the end of yourself is a blessing is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount, and it really centers on Matthew Chapter 5: the famous beatitudes and the reversals of ideas that show just how radical God is. You know what I’m talking about. Blessed are all those people we normally think are cursed: the poor, the weak, the mourners, and all the other poor souls that I’m often glad not to be a part of.  Except that I am, and that’s hard to admit.

The beatitudes are funny. Intellectually we get them. Yeah yeah, poor, weak, sad, all that stuff.  Of course, Jesus can take those things and make them riches, happiness, and joy.  It’s almost fun to read and think about just how amazing it is.  That is, until you’re left with nothing and the fear takes over.  So often the fear is attacking deeply held ideas…ideas like our security, our reputation, our freedom, our health and so many other things that we hold dear, and often hold on to with a tight illusion-of-control grip.  We’re not programmed to embrace weakness.  We’re not told how powerful it can be to be poor, and so it’s not a surprise that embracing it isn’t natural.

Speaking of unnatural, what’s really unnatural is complete trust.  And yet, that’s the secret to the beatitudes.  And it follows through in Matthew 6.  He cares for the sparrows and the flowers, and He’ll take care of us. The key is to let go. To do the thing that is completely unnatural. And it’s downright terrifying when you have nothing left and no plan B’s. Yet those times are the test of our real belief.  The unrestrained trust that at first seems impossible becomes something we crave.  That is a real Spirit-led reversal.

If we want to bring transformation to our neighborhoods, our community, and our world, we must first be transformed.  The first step toward transformation is finding and admitting our limited power, strength, control, and resources.  We are not enough, in and of ourselves.  When we are ready to admit that, drop the constant striving and find all we need in Jesus, we find the end of ourselves is actually beginning of a new life.  This life is one lived in the presence and power of the One who has no limits…the only One who can bring true change.

Check out Kyle’s book.  Tell him I sent you.  Not that he has any idea who I am…?

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.” -C.S. Lewis

Reading is one of my passions. As a kid, I passed countless hours and ruined my eyesight reading The Boxcar Children, Choose Your Own Adventure novels, and Nancy Drew by nightlight, well past my bedtime. As a teenager, I read YA novels and classics while sitting in a Hastings bookstore during my free periods. As an adult, I’ve soaked in the works of a bigger variety of authors, both Christian and others. I’ve read a lot of books, and lived many lives through them.

When I think of books I would have every Christian read, however, my suggestion may surprise you, because I read them for the first time when I was nine years old. To this day, I dedicate a large part of my understanding of Christ’s sacrificial love, and the anticipation of being with Him in heaven, to “The Chronicles of Narnia”.

"Read them to your kids, or enjoy them on your own, and I promise your understanding of and love for Jesus will look different because of it."

Many people have heard of C.S. Lewis, especially in Christian circles. He wrote great and noteworthy works such as “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters”. Whimsical, important, interesting theological works, worth a read any day of the week. But in my humble opinion, his most accessible and theologically exegetical book was written for his young goddaughter, Lucy, in 1950. It goes by the title “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”.

In TLWW, a young English girl named Lucy stumbles through a magic wardrobe which transports her to the enchanting world of Narnia. Her three siblings make their way through as well, and a poignant adventure comes into being. Filled with fauns, talking animals, and evil snow queens, this book lives up to every inch of what a children’s adventure story should be. Not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, I know. Let me encourage you by saying that through the hero of the story, a lion named Aslan, the character of Jesus and the Gospel story are mirrored in every plot point. Made to be understood by children, but not at the expense of deep meaning for a reader of any age.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

“The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” is the second in the chronicle of 7 books penned by Lewis, each taking on a new part of his magical land and a different aspect of Aslan’s (and thereby Jesus’s) person. These stories are at varying times hilarious, heartbreaking, pensive, and deep. Read them to your kids, or enjoy them on your own, and I promise your understanding of and love for Jesus will look different because of it.

I saw the book Abba's Child for sale at a personal retreat 4 years ago. Being a busy mom of 6 kids, I decided to purchase it on Audible – knowing I’d be a lot more likely to have time to listen to it than to sit down and read it. It stayed un-listened to on my phone for 4 months, until a conversation with my therapist reminded me about it. I will never forget listening to it for the first time in the car on the way to a doctor’s appointment. The blessings in the preface startled me, the first chapter made me cry, the second chapter convicted me, and every chapter afterwards touched me and moved me deeply with this most life changing message: “I am the one Jesus loves.” That is all. That is enough.

When asked to write about my favorite book and why it is important to my faith, I knew which book it would be - without a doubt: Abba’s Child. It is the only book I have listened to five. times. in. a. row. not kidding. And it has brought me to tears every time. Being the first-born perfectionist that I am, I have always tried to “do the right thing” in order to please God. And I have always looked down on other people in order to justify myself as better.

Brennan Manning invited me to deal honestly with my “false self,” to bring the Pharisee inside of me out of hiding and present her to Jesus, to embrace myself as Abba’s child, to live “in the present risen-ness of Christ” and also to truly believe that “My Abba is very fond of me!”

I invite you to be loved by God as you read this book.

Love, Nicole Radigan

P.S. This audiobook is on sale for $4.99 here for the rest of the month of February!