The other night while my daughter was up sick with the stomach flu, this post ran through my mind. I know, I know. I’m not sure how and why thoughts are always processing but they are! While I was tending to my daughter, my husband, Kory, got up. He got extra sheets and towels and laid them on our bed. He helped me hold her hair while she was puking, and he made himself a bed on the couch since she took his spot in our bed. (Mommy got the sickie, but that’s ok with me)!

He didn’t have to do any of this. I never asked him to and we’ve never drawn a line in the sand that defines who does what jobs in our family. As a matter of fact, I expect to do most of the house/child “grunt-work” as I stay at home with our kids all day long. My husband wakes up early and goes to work so he must be on his game all day long. (I at least can run around the house in PJ’s and zone out if I need to) But because my husband is a Godly man, full of integrity, seeking to serve his bride and family he acts in deed! It was during his 3rd trip up the stairs that I thought to myself, “We are indeed, a power couple”.

Let me back up a second. For those of you not familiar with the irony of me calling us a “power couple”, I’ll define the traditional term below from dictionary.com:

Clearly, Kory and I do not define the typical “power couple” description! But as I laid there that night, I couldn’t help but think we were just a “different kind” because of the “High-Power” we have in our lives.

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A while back, I heard this quote, “To have a healthy marriage, each partner should not give 50/50, but 100/100.”  It’s sort of a teamwork analogy. We are “Team Smith”–and we want to flourish. If you’ve ever played competitively in sports you know that teams don’t win when the effort is singled out to a few players. No–teams win when each player gives 110% on the floor. There have been plenty of times in our marriage where Kory has picked up the slack on my end and vice versa. There definitely have been times when I could have stacked up all the things I’ve done for the family but where would that get us? Well, I’ll tell you where it would get us–a big fight. (Not that that’s happened before. Ahem) After 10 years of marriage, we’ve learned it’s from this mentality that I believe that we are truly a “power couple”!

We also aren’t just “Team Smith” but also “Team God’s Kingdom”. There are so many benefits to a Christian marriage, but one of which is it is a fantastic tool to build God’s kingdom! When we are able to step back and realize that our relationship is not just for pleasure and procreation, but that it has an eternal PURPOSE, man, it changes things! There are plenty of days that I don’t want to respect Kory or his leadership and plenty of days when I am totally unlovable to him. But when we step back and see the bigger picture that we are indeed serving and loving the Lord first in our actions, the trickle down affect is amazing!

I came across a tweet the other day in twitterland which I loved.

Gosh, that’s good! I have to tell you–at the time of crisis in my life–whether it’s my daughter’s puking, the aftermath of a miscarriage, or facing fog in my life, I’m not looking for someone to fix me. I’m looking for someone to walk with me–through the yuck. I am so thankful that I’ve found that in Kory.

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Now, I know what some of you are going to say (because I thought of it right away), “How do I know that my significant other/fiancee/spouse will faithfully walk with me? How can I know that without going through the trials? The answer? You won’t. There’s no way you can EVER prepare someone for the trials that marriage (and parenting!) will throw you! I am reading the book ” The Meaning of Marriage” by Tim Keller, and one of my favorite passages says,

” Marriage brings you into more intense proximity to another human being than any other relationship can. Therefore, the moment you marry someone, you and your spouse begin to change in profound ways, and you can’t know ahead of time what those changes will be. So you don’t know, you can’t know, who your spouse will actually be in the future until you get there. ” (page 38)

BAM. How’s that for a truthbomb? Now why do you think God has designed it this way? Don’t you think He knows the heartache this would create between people in a marriage? Yes indeed, and I believe it was done with a purpose in mind for the Christian–sanctification: the act of being made holy, being set apart for use. One of my favorite Pastors, Matt Chandler said in a podcast, “Marriage is the fast lane to sanctification”. I laughed because I thought, dude, you took the words right out of my mouth! The minute I married Kory was the minute that my life went from cruise control into overdrive in regards to showing me how selfish I was and brought me to moments of great humility. Yes–marriage is a fast way to be made holy and set apart!

So I end this to say that through the cracks, weaknesses, and messiness of our marriage, Kory and I are a power couple. We have “High Power” because we are “HIMpowered’! Friend, do not be discouraged if your marriage is going through the thick of it! With growth comes growing pains! Turn your focus onto eternity as you patiently love and work through everything. Tap into the High Power that you have direct access to–it’s yours for the taking! It is for His glory on this earth that His light may shine through the cracks of our messy marriages to light up a dark world!