Wow! How much things have changed in the last TWO YEARS!!!! Let's see... Well I think the title says it all... Right after my last post, we found out we were pregnant... and then went through some really strange and tough times in our marriage. Pregnancy hormones really mess you up... for BOTH of you! It was really hard for me, as the head of household and author of this blog, to publish anything on this blog about how to have a great marriage while I myself wasn't sure what was to happen next in ours. It's hard to get your bearings in the midst of the storm! And it was a difficult pregnancy at that, however at the end, we had a beautiful baby boy!
So, where was I after that? Busy... In a different way! learning how to be a daddy is not easy, and with sleep deprivation on both sides, communication starts to break down. Due to our exhaustion, we had no energy to... take comfort in each other... and with a baby, bye bye goes any spendable money, especially as my wife became a stay at home mommy! So I vaguely remember something about me mentioning these three things being of some sort of importance in a marriage. It's really been odd going from having a marriage that everyone seemed to want to emulate to having a marriage that everyone that people were praying for.
What they say about having a baby is really true and you never really realize just how potently true that is until you are there. Having a baby REALLY changes EVERYTHING!!! All of a sudden, the glances I would give her before that said "I love you" now made her thing "Oh, great... He wants sex again? we just had it last month!" Her tender kisses were replaced with grunts as she left and came back to bed to breast feed our child. Ok... maybe it wasn't that bad... but we did have to relearn how to interact with each other now that there are three of us. We are still working at it every day, but I think that is the important thing.
So why come back now? Well, last weekend, my mother-in-law of all people was asking us for marital related advice. And though it was mildly disturbing to talk about intimate details about my mother-in-law's marriage, I realized that God had once again placed us in a position to help give Godly advice to someone who needs it. It made me happy that even though we don't have ALL the answers, we still have learned quite a lot in the last two years and I think we are stronger for it.
I've often thought of this blog and some wonderful things to share on here. I've forgotten most of them. Needless to say, I've forgotten what I was going to do for that communication series, so that's out for now, but I'll be back here and there to offer up to you anything that's laid on my heart. And to those who've emailed me over the last couple of years, thank you for your kind and encouraging words. I needed to hear them at the exact times they were sent.
God bless you and your marriage!
Nathan Ward I
