Keeping God first in your Marriage. Featuring: Charlene Maugeri

 I'm gonna start this post out honestly by saying that Leon and I have not always been the perfect example of putting God first in the business of our lives. I still don't think that now. However, we've gotten better!

 He's a full time cop and I'm a full time mom. He works at night and I'm with the kiddos during the day. When he's awake I'm sleeping and when I'm awake he's sleeping.

Get my point? We rarely see each other most days and we've used our busyness as an excuse to not read the bible together or pray together. And in doing that two years ago ended out with a very bad taste in our mouths. We had little intimacy, we argued almost every day and with him being a cop he was letting the influence of swearing and getting angry easily  take over him which led to.. well, more arguing.

However, things changed last October when he had a 20 day vacation. We both just changed and desire even more of God. In one night Leon's anger left him and he were love birds all over again. Now our goal and passion is to put God first in our lives. Ahead of our busyness, of our children and each other. We desire to be overwhelmed by Him and not overwhelmed by the busyness of our days.

We read devotionals when we're together and when He's working I'll send him a sermon I've been listening too or a verse I loved that day.  I wish I could say that we spend hours together every day in prayer but it's just not that way yet and hopefully once his full time Pastor lifestyle comes through we'll be able to do that. I deeply admire spouses who can!

So, here are some ways Leon and I keep God first in our marriage and communicate Jesus to each other.

1. We pray together.. Not everyday (like we should) but we do as often as we can. However, when we're not praying together, we're praying for each other. which is just as good in my opinion. Man there's  power in prayer!

2. We read the bible and devotionals when He's off of work. On days He's not working we'll read a devotional together before we go to bed. We love reading Devotionals by Bill Johnson, Joseph Prince and just anything that brings us in the Awesomeness  of God's love and power.

We'll also listen to sermons together.. We love Todd White! Also Bill Johnson and a lot of Marriage wisdom sermons.

3. We pray with our children. Now this is something him and I do before we put Evelynne (our daughter) to bed. We give her a kiss, read her a story and we pray together. It's my favorite looking around the room with all of our hands held together and talking to Jesus as a family.

4. I write Leon love notes with scripture telling him how much I love him and how proud I am of him with a scripture to brighten his day. Writing is my language and that's a form of communication that I have always shown him.

5. And when he's not working on Sundays we ALWAYS make it a priority to be at church.. It doesn't matter how many times My 3 month old Liya girl has kept me up. :)


 Take it away Charlene. :)

You know what? Pearson and I are very busy. Especially Pearson. Did you know that getting a PhD is hard and time consuming? Shocker, right? But in all seriousness, Pearson really isn't home a lot. Most nights he gets home at 9 or later and he works Saturdays too. And while I may not work so much for my job, I also take care of a dog, do housework, write a blog, and am very involved with church by teaching children's classes, hosting showers and all sorts of other things.

But you know what? There is always someone out their busier. I mean, we don't even have kids yet. I can remember how busy I was as a kid going from piano lessons to ballet then straight to softball practice all in one day. And my mom had to take me all those places and figure out how to get my brother where he needed to be also.

Life is busy. That word is thrown around all the time. And I think The Devil tries to use our business to keep us out of Gods word and stop us from talking to our Creator. I think Satan tries to trick us into thinking we don't have time for God today and makes us forget our priorities. And a lot of times, he succeeds.

So here are some ideas to help you keep God first in your busy marriage.

1. Pray with your spouse. I don't care how late it is, how tired you are or any of those excuses, pray together before you go to sleep. Pray about things that happened that day, hopes you have for the next day, your future together and anything else you need to bring to God. Make it a habit. Pray together before every meal. Pray together at other special times. Just always be in prayer together.
2. Pray for your spouse. I tell you, there is not much else you can do to feel closer to your spouse than to lift him or her up in prayer. Ask him how you can pray for him. Pray constantly for his safety, his confidence at work, any problems or doubts he's having that he told you about, and his spirituality. 
3. Study the Bible together. We definitely don't do this as often as we should but we try to read a short devotional together before bed every night. It's very important to constantly study and grow your own faith through scripture, but it's just important to grow your faith together as a couple.
4. Make Church a priority. Go to church every time the doors are open and get involved. Find out where you can help as individuals but also as a couple. And if your spouse ever doesn't feel like going, set an example and go by yourself anyway. The result might surprise you.
5. Go to God with conflicts. When people fight with their spouses (or anyone for that matter), usually the first instinct is to run to friends or family and rant about the issue. We tell other people our side of the story and sometimes blame the other party and put them in a bad light. Instead of running to other people, we should run to God. Take the issue up with the Man Upstairs on your own and maybe He'll show you your fault. Take the issue to The Father together with your spouse and maybe He'll help you find an answer.
6. Treat God's word as your first source of marriage counsel. I tell you, there is a lot of wisdom in that book. If you have questions about anything going on in your life, you can probably find answers in the Bible, but especially marriage. Explore the topic and soak in the wisdom.
7. Find other Christian couple friends to spend time with. It's certainly important to make friends with people who have similar beliefs and values as yourself but as a couple it's important to make friends with couples in this category. Being friends with people in similar stages of life is such a blessing. You are experiencing much of the same things in life and can help each other on your journeys.