Pre Engagement Question #5 – Can you talk about marriage? (Guest Post on Devotional Diva)

If you popped over from Devotional Diva, welcome!

This past year, Renee Johnson Fisher and I have bonded, from halfway across the country, over writing for Start Marriage Right, getting married about six months apart and having conniptions over Debi Pearl’s book “Created To Be His Helpmeet.” So when she asked me to write a guest post for her blog, where you may know her best as the “Devotional Diva,” I jumped at the chance. When she asked me to write about pre-engagement questions, though, I thought I might have to jump ship. Joel and I didn’t ask a lot of questions pre-engagement, which you can read more about in the post.

Then my friend Shannon, with whom I also have bonded this past year over writing for Start Marriage Right, pointed me to this video by Francis Chan (embedded at the end of the post). And I’m pretty sure a light bulb visibly appeared over my head as I was listening to it: The most important questions weren’t the ones Joel and I hadn’t asked each other. It was the one we had asked ourselves — and God. It was, as Chan said whether we could “do this better, if you can please God better and reflect Him better … as a married person.”

If you read anything I ever have or ever will write about marriage, I hope it’s this post. Because this is what I want you to know: There’s something bigger. It’s not about you or him or the ring or the dress or wedding or your special and wonderful and incredible love story. It’s about God.

Our pastor asked my now-husband and I an important question at our first premarital counseling session.

“When did you first start to talk about marriage?”

And, we answered honestly, we really hadn’t talked about marriage in the two years we had dated until Joel gave me a ring.

Not unless you count the time he asked, hypothetically and completely without context, how many kids I wanted to have someday. Or the time he asked, generally, what kind of “jewelry” I liked.

Of course, we hadn’t talked about dating until after we had been friends more than a year and he snuck his hand across the couch to mine and said he thought we should go on a date. (I said I thought it was about time.)

This is not generally what pastors like to hear, I take it.

For the rest of the story, read Pre Engagement Question #5 – Can you talk about marriage? (Guest Post on Devotional Diva).

Read all posts in Renee Johnson Fisher’s “Pre Engagement Questions” series here. (Also, sign up for her email newsletter for a free download of her new eBook, also titled “Pre Engagement Questions.”)

Photo credit: Thrive Photography, Renee Johnson Fisher.

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10 Summer Date Ideas (RELEVANT)

If you popped over from RELEVANT, welcome! I always have wanted to write for RELEVANT, ever since my church in college was featured in the magazine and passed out copies after the evening service. I discovered the music of Eisley and Sufjan Stevens in its pages, and more recently have been challenged (and relieved) by articles on its website, like “Who Submits To Whom?” and “Beauty vs. Sexuality” and my favorite author Lauren Winner’s reflection on “Why I Am (Still) A Christian.”

And while “date ideas” isn’t really my sphere of expertise (hence the “list of 10 magical, memorable and maniacal summer date ideas,” according to @RELEVANT), I jumped at the opportunity when Stephanie Smith contacted me and suggested the topic.

Special thanks to my husband, who I think has taken me on every one of these dates, except maybe mini golf and trivia night. And if you have any ideas for future articles you would like to read on RELEVANT, let me know.

“That sounds awesome.”

Recently at a summer bonfire, I overhead the tail end of a conversation between my husband and his friends as Joel evidently described our first date. Joining them mid-conversation, I wasn’t sure what part of the date it was that sounded so awesome.

My first guess, because this was a group of guys, was the part where Joel and I had carved a Jack-O-Lantern, jabbed a bunch of sparklers into its mouth and ended our first date holding hands and watching it burn on my back porch. But no, he hadn’t made it to that part of the story yet.

This left the parts of our first date where we browsed records at an antique store for a friend’s birthday, wandered around some random neighborhood looking for a bookstore Joel had been to once (I love nothing so much as a bookstore), caught a movie at an independent theater and ate Korean barbecue.

All of this sounded awesome, the guys said, because our first date sounded like one big adventure. And it was.

So for the adventurous among you, here are a 10 summer date ideas for you to try.

For the rest of the story, read 10 Summer Date Ideas (RELEVANT).

Photo credit: My first article on the RELEVANT website!

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