Married life and thoughts on Sunday's sermon

I would like to begin this first of all my married-woman posts by announcing that this blog is now officially six years old! I started this thing when I was just 15.  Which feels especially long ago now that I'm an old married woman.

Speaking of marriage...

We finally got the rest of the professional photos!  I would post some but the disk he gave us isn't really working right now.  But they will be forthcoming, I promise.  Our photographer was super rad (not really a me word, is it?) and gave us a disk and a release form so we can reproduce the pictures as much as we want.

I'm finding that married life is definitely my thing.  I love everything about it, from waking up in the morning and getting my husband out the door to cleaning the house while he's gone to experimenting with different recipes for dinner and finding ways to fill our quiet evenings together.  Of course it's not the most glamorous job in the world, and even the joy that initially came just from opening the cupboard and seeing it filled with pretty dishes is already beginning to wear off.  But that can't possibly take away from the simple satisfaction that goes with fulfilling a God-given calling day-in and day-out, which is not really something you have to be married to do- but I am finding it easier to do now that I love my job so much.

Yesterday we had an incredible sermon by Pastor Bart Carlson (aka Uncle Bart) about the phrase "Hallowed be Your name," which of course comes from the Lord's prayer.  It stirred me up to want to pray more, which is hard, but also to do more, which for me is much harder.  Part of that has to do with giving all the glory to God, which always seems like an ambiguous concept to me.  How exactly do I do that?  It seems whenever I think the words, "To God be the glory" my heart is still full of sinful pride, deep down.  But according to this sermon, the way to give all the glory to God is to constantly remember that you don't have anything which you haven't been given.

That is a truly humbling thought.  Here at home I am doing my very best to establish a homestead with my new husband, and sometimes, surprisingly, succeeding.  Even amid all the little spills, burns, lazy spells, breakdowns, squabbles, overspendatures and other mishaps that accompany life here at the Villa house, it's so easy for me to become puffed up and exhilarated whenever one meal or one cleaning day goes right- to think that I've finally done something really worthwhile. But honestly, what have I ever accomplished that wasn't first given to me, through training sessions with my mom, or supplies given to us as gifts, or a husband provided to me by none other than God himself?  Truly, I have done nothing that can honestly go to my credit- and I don't think there's a one of us who has.

It was a very convicting reminder.  Of course, doing more in the name of hallowing God's name goes much further than this one aspect- but I can't write blog posts all day.  :-)

I hope to start posting more soon.  And for all of you formerly avid bloggers who haven't posted in months, you should do the same!  Discussion question:  What's the most difficult thing you someday hope to accomplish?  There!  I challenge all of you.