Messy Marriage Mondays: Pulling Weeds

{Elissa Ewald Photography}

The other night, Rory and I did some yard work. Yes, you read that correctly, Jessica Mathisen did yard work. Truth is, our beds that are in front of our front porch were looking pretty ratchet. Weeds were growing everywhere and overtaking the walkway up to our door. It was a hot mess express. So we got some tools, some weed killer, and went to work.

As we were working together that night, the imagery just sort of struck me. Here we are, two broken people, each big fat sinners with agendas of our own, trying to make this thing called marriage work and doing the best we can at it. Sometimes, there are some weeds that need to be pulled from our hearts. And y'all, it is not a one-sided thing. No one is always the bad guy. We both have to diligently pull the weeds from our own hearts in order to live and work together as one in order to reflect Christ to a world that so desperately needs some hope.

So what are these weeds, Jessica? I'm so glad you asked.

Some common weeds that can choke the life out of a marriage:

selfishness
pride
discontentment
anger

These weeds can manifest themselves in so many ways, and if we are not careful, they can literally choke the life out of our marriages. We can begin to feel entitled as we let our weeds become overgrown with a life of their own, suppressing us and sowing lies that enable us to think that we are in the right when in fact, we are very, very wrong.

I know I haven't been married long, but God has taught Rory and I a lot in our first year of marriage, and I want to share what we've learned.

For the next few weeks, join me on Mondays for Messy Marriage Mondays, where we will take a look at some hard things and explore together how we can pull the weeds and begin sowing seeds. Are you with me?