It’s time to cancel the mail, call the pet sitter, and check the tires for a VACATION! This is the time of year to go on vacation, visit relatives, go see friends, and make new discoveries. So that’s what we’re doing here on Come Have a Peace!

This summer I’ve invited some of my online gal pals to come for a visit and bring their hard-won wedded wisdom for Marriage Mondays.  It’s a godly group of women who have walked the aisle in all different styles, and they share now from different states and seasons. Be sure to subscribe to email updates over there in the sidebar if you haven’t so you don’t miss a single one of my wifely friends. I’m so excited for you to meet them!

Let’s kick off this summer of wedded wisdom from my girlfriends with a visit from my West Coast-moved-South girlfriend Joanne Kraft.  Come sit on the couch, Joanne, let me get you a latte, and tell us what you’ve learned!

You Can’t Do it On Your Own

Marriage is hard. Understatement of the millennium, right?

Two very different human beings brought up by two different people in two different households. Two people with two different personalities, two different life experiences, family traditions, ideals, goals…then God does the unthinkable. He puts us together as one.

Makes me wonder if God doesn’t have a warped sense of humor. It’s a crazy recipe for disaster if you stop and think about it. I love musicals. Paul hates them. I love social interaction. Paul is fine alone with a book. I was raised by a U.S. Marine who served in Viet Nam. Paul was raised by a father who left the country during the Viet Nam war. My parents didn’t encourage college. Paul’s parents valued education greatly. On and on it goes. There’s almost no chance for marriage success. Statistics prove my point.

But God…

He created each one of us. He knows how we fit together. We fit together because there’s a third piece needed: Him. When Christ is included my husband and I are a perfect, unmovable, unstoppable union.

You can’t do it without Him. Sure, you’ll try in your own strength, but when you do it yourself it’s not long before you’re discouraged and disappointed and bitterness takes up residency and signs a lifelong lease with your heart.

• Stop beating your head against a wall.
• Stop reading the self-help books. “Self” anything is the first step on the wrong path.
• Stop listening to Oprah. Goodness, girl, she isn’t even married.
• Stop thinking there’s some three-step plan to marriage bliss. There isn’t and there never will be.

There’s one step to success and it’s Jesus. Always has been. Always will be. Forever and ever Amen. We love because He first loved us, remember?  “We love because He first loved us.” (1John 4:10)

Are you going through a rough patch with your husband today? Then bring your vanilla latte to the couch and kick off your shoes. I’m about to share two exceptional and necessary parts of the nature of Jesus that are a must-have to create a marriage that rocks your world.

Surrender.

Each time you are frustrated and annoyed, each time you’re angry or agitated– you’re trying to be in control. That’s not your job, it’s His. Surrender. Give the Lord your marriage today. Let go of the bitterness, frustration and aggravations holding you back from all He has for your marriage.

Sacrifice.

Dictionary.com defines it this way: to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to. It’s like surrender on steroids. When was the last time you let go of something that was bothering you, a word he said, or something he didn’t do to help? When you lay your life down and give up the bitterness and vengeful thoughts, Jesus will take it from there.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son.” (John 3:16) Jesus gave when we didn’t deserve it. Jesus surrendered His life for us. Jesus surrendered to His Father’s plan for us. He sacrificed.

Surrender and sacrifice, they work hand in hand. Nothing could be more difficult. I should know. I failed at my first marriage because I didn’t understand. But, I didn’t make the same mistake twice.

From someone who’s been there, let me say this one more time: You can’t do it alone. You need Jesus alongside you.
Remember that.

Joanne Kraft is a busy mom and the author of Just Too Busy—Taking Your Family on a Radical Sabbatical. Joanne has been a single mom, divorced mom, full time working mom and stay at home mom. She understands the heart of a mom. She and her husband now live in Tennessee where they’re raising their four children and have happily traded soy milk and arugula for sweet tea and biscuits. Joanne’s articles have been published by Chicken Soup for the Soul, Thriving Family, In Touch, ParentLife, Today’s Christian Woman, Kyria, P31 Woman and more. She’s appeared on CBN, Focus on the Family, Family Life Today and The Harvest Show. joannekraft.com

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