Marriage...Love...Babies...

I look at my children and I still see them as they looked when they were newborns.  It's hard to imagine that Roar will be 1 in a week and Jace will be 3 in June...  I love my children more than I thought possible.  I never once worried if I would be able to love my second born as much as my first.  And this is a very real concern for a lot of women these days, the idea that they can love a second baby as much as their first.  I didn't have "to make room" in my heart.  It got me thinking of the magnitude of Christ's love for ALL of us.  He doesn't pick and choose among us, he just loves.  Infinitely.  Undeniably.  Completely.  This is how I feel for my children.  It's a glimmer of Heaven for me... this all encompassing joy of my children.  Children are a privilege from the Lord... they are the fruit of marriage : a sacred love.  "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.  Like arrows in in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.  Happy is the man who has a quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed."  Psalm 127: 3-5  

It is only through God's grace that we are married and take on the God given responsibilities of becoming one flesh... and through our holy union, again by God's grace, are we blessed with children.  Trey and I have made a commitment before God to join together, and to multiply for the glory of the Lord.  We are committed to building our home with the grace of God...  Marriage is not intended to be easy, but it is intended to bring us closer to Christ.  "God intends for marriage to be both romantic and redemptive.  God aims to rid us of selfishness.  He uses difficulties in marriage  to melt away the dross in our lives, or as the writer of Hebrews puts it, God chastens us, 'for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.  Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it' (Heb. 12:10, 11)." God intends for our marriages to reflect His image to a world that desperately needs to see who He is.  "So God created man in His own image: in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" Gen. 1:26, 27.  I read somewhere the Hebrew word for mirror means "to reflect God, to magnify, exalt, and glorify Him."  I take this to mean that we should focus on His words, "in His own image" and apply this to our marriages with the respect that we should within our marriages adhere to God's will for us and treat our spouses in such a way that it will "reflect, magnify, exalt, and glorify" God.  These are the standards to which we should hold our spouses, and especially ourselves, too.