The Hands of My Love

Those Dear Hands...

I remember the very day we first met, we were sitting at the kitchen table playing a game with my parents. I asked you how you got the scar next to your thumb, though I wasn't sure if that was something I should ask about, having just met you. Even then, I remember thinking that your hands looked so strong and kind. 

Those Dear Hands...

I'll never forget when you slid that gorgeous, intricate diamond ring onto my finger after asking me to be your wife. You took my left hand in yours for just a moment, and I knew that I would say yes a million times over to being yours for the rest of my life.

Those Dear Hands...

I remember the morning of our wedding, a couple hours before the ceremony, when I reached around the corner of the wall (so you couldn't see me! :) to take your hand as we prayed together. It was the first time we'd held hands, and mine fit so perfectly into yours.

Those Dear Hands...

They gripped mine with seemingly inexhaustible strength and comfort as I agonized to bring our sweet babies into the world.

Those Dear Hands...

They held me close and so gently wiped my tears as I wept over the way I didn't recognize myself in the mirror anymore. And even many more times since, when I have wept over much sillier things than that.

Those Dear Hands...

They work so hard every day to provide for us. And yet they are always ready to help me with the dishes or a diaper change when I'm weary.

Those Dear Hands...

I watch them as you play with our boys, tumbling their little bodies around in pillow fights and tickle fights. As you teach their much smaller, chubbier, and less coordinated hands how to catch a ball out of the air. 

Those Dear Hands...

They are always ready to do a kindness for others. Always ready to reach across in the car to take my own. Always loving and gentle.

My dear husband, your hands are a sweet reminder to me of the hands of my Saviour. They are Christlike hands, for with them you do so many Christlike things. And I am deeply, richly blessed to hold your hand in mine, till death do us part.

All my love,

Your MK

Four Things Marriage Has Taught Me About My Relationship With Christ

Hello, All!
Today's post is one that I've actually been considering for some time, but haven't been able to get my thoughts collected clearly enough to write a blog post about it. (Not that this is going to be miraculously coherent now that I'm actually writing it, mind you--I'm not sure I'm capable of such a thing. ;) Still, I shall do my best. 

As most of you are aware, Luke and I have been married for just over a year now, and I can honestly say that I am incredibly blessed to have him for my husband, life partner, and best friend. Marriage has been so different in many ways than I imagined it...different as in FAR better than I ever thought! I'm not saying we've had a perfect marriage with zero problems or difficulties, but I can say that these have been few and far between; mostly because he is so good about patiently dealing with issues when they come along, and putting up with me and my flaws incredibly well. ;)

Over this very new season of life, God has used marriage to teach me some valuable lessons that I believe can apply to anyone, married or not. I hope that these things will be a blessing to those who read it, no matter what stage of life you are currently in! :) Without further ado, here are four things God has been teaching me through our marriage thus far.

1. The importance of serving God with the right motives.
One thing that has struck me lately is the fact that motives do matter. If you are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or with the wrong attitude, then how much good are you really doing? In 1 Corinthians 13, it talks about all the "good works" that you can do that become nothing without the motive being that of charity. 

Applying this with marriage...I have realized clearly that when I serve my husband out of the deep love and respect that I hold for him both as a man, and as the man in specific that God has placed in my life to lead and protect me, it is so much more fulfilling and full of joy! Tasks can become a blessing and a pleasure, whereas if I'm performing them merely out of duty, they have the potential to become routine or tedious. I believe service to God is the same way--when my heart attitude towards the acts of service are not right, I can very quickly slip into the mindset of either pride ("My church should be thankful they have me") or self pity ("No one recognizes how much I do around here"). None of which is truly pleasing to God. How convicting!

2. My responsibility to invest in my communication and relationship with The Lord.
A few weeks ago this thought really hit me...if I talked to Luke as often and as long as I talked to God, how would our relationship look? Wow. To rephrase, if I were to go days or weeks hardly talking to Luke at all (as I'm ashamed to say I've done with The Lord--short, unfocused prayer times, etc.) we would probably have a really terrible marriage. I know everyone talks about the importance of communication in marriage, so much so that it sounds cliche, but it's really incredibly true. The minute our loving and focused communication starts slipping, our closeness begins to suffer. The sad thing to me is that in the area of my relationship with God, a communication breach is always MY FAULT. Not His. Ever, in any way. God has given me His Word, and promised to speak to me through it. I have everything I need, and yet I fail Him and hinder a close, loving relationship by MY lack of communication. It would be as if Luke came home from work with loving words and arms open wide for me, and I turned my back and ignored him. I wouldn't dream of doing that to my sweet husband...yet how often do I neglect to draw near to my Lord because I "don't have the time"? 

3. How seriously I need to take sin.
When I hurt Luke, even in a small or seemingly insignificant way, it breaks my heart. I can't be content or happy until I have asked and received his forgiveness, and I know that things are reconciled between us. The feeling that I have caused a rift between us is something that I can hardly stand.

And yet, so often I tend to take a light view of "little" sins or offenses against God. I've really been convicted about this lately, because obviously I should be much more zealous about keeping a "clean slate" with God than I am even with my husband!

4. How much God loves me.
My husband loves me with such a selfless and unconditional love. He shows it every day through his words and actions--there has never been a time when I doubted that he loved me dearly. God has used Luke's love in my life to prove to me how much He Himself loves me. As much as I love and respect my husband, he is a sinner, as am I. And yet, if the love and care of a mere flawed human being can be so sweet and fulfilling to me, how much more the love of a perfect and unchanging God? To take this thought a step further...Luke has seen me at my worst and chosen to love me still. But though he knows me better than any other human on earth, even he cannot see my heart and the sin and folly it contains. God can, and His love for me is still perfect. That is amazing to think about! God knows all my deepest thoughts and imperfections, and keeps on loving me in spite of them. 

I hope that these thoughts were a blessing to you, whether you are in a relationship or not. They have been coming back to me over and over during the last few months, so I figured it was about time I tried to verbalize them. :) 

I'm sure once baby comes, I will have a whole new world of things God will want to teach me through that! For those wondering, the pregnancy is going well, and baby seems to be progressing as well as possible! :) I'll be 18 weeks on Tuesday, which means we will be able to find out the gender of our little one in about 2-3 weeks, depending on when I can get the scan before or after Thanksgiving. I'll be sharing on here once we find out!

Have a wonderful week! 
Mykaela

Wedding Pictures!

Hello, all!
It's been a bit of an adjustment for me, trying to remember to post on the blog, as it's been so long since it's been a regular habit! ;) My apologies on that. 

Since we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary on October 12, I decided to do a post with some of our wedding pictures. (Thank you for the suggestion, Grace! :) If you aren't a fan of wedding photos, no offense taken if you simply pass by this post. ;) Especially since I had a very hard time picking my favorites, and probably posted more than necessary. Oops. Oh well, I had fun reminiscing while I did it!!

We had my cousin, Kailyn, do our wedding pictures for us. She is from California and has a photography and videography business that she runs jointly with her fiance, Eric. She was gracious enough to come up to Washington for our wedding, and I honestly could NOT have been more thrilled with our wedding photos!! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves in a minute, but WOW...Luke and I were blown away with what a lovely job she did!

I'll go in sections throughout the wedding day, so it's easy to see how things flowed. The first thing that happened was that the groomsmen got ready at our church building and had their pictures taken, and then my girls and I showed up to trade places with them and start getting ready ourselves. Before the guys left, however, Luke and I did something very special that I am SO glad we did! Kailyn took me out behind the building to a little alcove and had me wait there while she went and got Luke. Then, so as not to have him see me, we held hands around the corner and prayed together. It was about 3 hours before our wedding, and this was our first time ever holding hands, so it was a really special moment!

Some handsome groom and groomsmen photos...

And some photos from our prayer together, as well as a moment of incredibly overwhelming joy for me...after Luke walked around the corner, I ran to catch a glimpse of him before he got in the car to go to the park where our wedding was going to be. It suddenly hit me as I looked after him that this was it. This was the day that the long wait was over, and I was marrying my best friend. :')

My heart is pounding fast again just looking at these pictures. ;) Here are some from the getting ready process with my sweet bridesmaids--all powered by Starbucks, of course. ;P

I was so blessed to have some of my dearest friends by my side to celebrate this happy day! :) Here are some from our bride/bridesmaid shoot after we were all ready for the wedding. The area around our church building really provided some pretty cool backdrops!! :D

I was thrilled to find the dark orange door, since our wedding colors were a kind of dark rusty orange and dark teal. (Though in some of the photos they look black, the bridesmaids' dressed are actually teal).

Here are a few pics of the decorations at our outdoor ceremony...I was SO thankful for absolutely beautiful weather on our wedding day!! God was so good to give us that, since we really didn't have a Plan B if it had been rainy or bad weather. 

We actually just reserved a portion of a public park (for FREE, no less!) and it worked out perfectly!! There was a nice section that was more or less closed off with trees, and any passersby were very respectful and didn't disturb us at all. It was really nice, because a lot of the "real" venues we'd been looking at were wanting to charge us up to 2 grand....as it was, we ended up spending less than that on the ENTIRE wedding total, simply by being careful, using what we had or borrowing from friends, making nearly all our own food, and letting God's creation cover most of the decorations for us. ;) I was so happy we decided to go with an outdoor ceremony, because it really fit the "feel" that I was hoping for perfectly. :) 

Up next are some photos from the actual ceremony. We had my little brother Kebron as our ring bearer, and a little friend, Ruth, as our flower girl (though every time I call her that, she insists that "They were NOT flowers, they were LEAVES!!" ;P We had her toss real leaves of different fall colors instead of petals). Luke and I sang together, and opted for the threefold cord for our unity ceremony. 

We took a very non traditional approach to our first kiss, (which to this day I am SO glad we did!!!!!!). After the preacher pronounced us husband and wife, and introduced us as the new couple, Luke picked me up and carried me off down the aisle! :D We went across a small stream to a secluded area by the riverbank, and shared our first kiss in private with just the two of us. (We didn't even have our photographer there for this, we just wanted to have our first few moments as a married couple to ourselves. :) While this may not be for everyone, I personally didn't really like the idea of sharing that special first kiss in front of 150 people...even people I knew and loved! It just made it that much more memorable to have it be just the two of us. Besides, it's not like they missed anything--we kissed plenty more times at the reception! ;P

Our reception was tons of fun, and we shared so many sweet memories with our friends and loved ones who were able to join us. One of my favorite moments was the bouquet toss...and I LOVE the pictures Kailyn got of that!! :D

The goodbyes at the end of the reception were kind of a blur for me, honestly...it was very surreal to be actually taking leave of my family there at our wedding! (Our honeymoon was on our way back to Missouri where my new home would be). 

Ok, this post is getting way too long, but I have to add a few of my favorite pictures from our sunset couple photos in Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth has some very dear memories for us from all throughout our relationship, so it was super special to be able to take our couple pictures there!! The scenery is so stunning, and by this time the lighting was absolutely perfect. This photo session was actually one of my very favorite memories from our wedding day. Kailyn did such a great job making us feel comfortable and letting the photos be real. 

That last picture series with the lamppost is SO special to me. :') My best friend Kimberly and I had taken pictures by that lamp back in 2016 when she came to visit me in person for the first time. Then when Luke and I were courting, we took a photo by the same lamppost...and then on our wedding day, we got those sweet shots. And my heart melts every time. ;) 

I know this was rather a lot of pictures, and I apologize...like I said, I will not be offended in the least if you happen to have just skimmed through, or just skipped this post altogether! I know a couple of my followers are planning weddings of their own in the semi-near future, so if there are any questions about anything, just let me know in the comments! :)  I found it super helpful when I was wedding planning to talk to gals that had recently been through the joys of doing it themselves, and get their tips and ideas. 

I hope anyone that's still with me at this point is having a great week, and that it will just keep getting better from here! :) Happy Fall!
Love,
Mykaela