Journal Entry 33: Notes In a Book

Jesus, if you’re not in it, I don’t want it.

Journal Entry 33: Notes In a Book

          Rainy and I are about to celebrate our 5th year of marriage next month. Five years doesn’t seem like a long time, in reality, it isn’t that long. Yet, wow has our family been through some challenges in those five years. Having a foundation with Jesus certainly helped us navigate the craziness. Going on walks and talks, something we still do plenty of, helped. Coming up on another year, we’ve got something new we’ve been doing that seems like it might become another staple in our marriage. Alongside Walks-and-Talks, I’ll call this one Notes In a Book.

          Rainy’s parents, my fairly awesome in-laws, like to give us marriage devotionals each year. So far we’ve tried them and set them down after a few nights trying to read them. This year seemed to be going the same way until I tried a different tactic. Rainy loves getting letters from me, so I thought I’d try reading one of our devotional books one day at a time and leave my thoughts written down along the pages for Rainy. Each night I read a devotional, usually about 2/3 pages long, then leave my thoughts written in the margines with added love notes or laughs for her. Once finished I set the book to the side for Rainy to read when she has a free moment that night or the next day.

          The benefits so far have been good. The material is designed to help us as a couple; which can’t hurt. To my surprise, yes my genuine surprise, some of the advice was really good. Some of it was not, but that’s to be expected, I think. These books are designed for a broad audience. I’m determined to better my relationship with Jesus, a battle that is on going with me, and these books are Christian based, so they help with that. Maybe the most obvious benefit is from what Rainy told me, “I get to know you better thanks to your notes.” Rainy gets the added bonus of my little notes; which, motivates her to dive into the devotional.

          Our first book ‘Devotions for a Sacred Marriage’ by Gary Thomas, proved to be a great starter for this experiment. The book was designed for weekly devotionals, but we did them every day finishing the book much faster than the set-up planned. Yet I don’t count this as a problem, because, the layout of the book set us up for a 2/3 page read each night. I knew I’d be spending maybe twenty minutes at max reading and writing notes along the margins and underlining things that stuck out to me. Rainy knew to expect a short read with added notes and such included. It gave us a routine with a decent time expectation. Also, the book was really good. We’ve been through a few devotional books that just couldn’t keep our interest, this one did.

          We’re now on our second book, and this is where I have found that the pacing set by ‘Devotions for a Sacred Marriage’ was so important. Our second book, ‘Captivating’ by John and Stasi Eldredge is not a marriage devotional but a book designed by Stasi with the help of her husband John, my favorite Christian author, to help women. I wanted to get this for my wife, because the book doesn’t just give you a list of good ways to serve your family and church. The book is about being beautiful, strong, courageous, and so much more as a woman of God. We’re still in the beginning of the book, but we have loved its message so far. Where does the pacing problem come in, well, the book is set up in chapters.

          Having a book with several pages to read each night or in the middle of the night after you’ve fed your newborn can be daunting. I didn’t want to spend the last bit of night up late reading and writing, and I knew Rainy wasn’t going to have the time or energy. Thanks to our first book, I knew what to do. After reading a couple pages, typically there’s a good stopping point, I just make a dotted line and Rainy knows I’ve paused there. We still get to have the short reads, extra details with my notes and such, and we get to expand our new ‘Notes-in-a-Book’ experiment to more than just devotionals.

          There is a few things I’d tell any married about to be married couple, and none of them are originals. The simple things work if you’ve got Jesus as your mentor, so I don’t complicate my life with marriage advice that looks like rocket science or unbiblical ‘openness.’ First piece of advice, probably saw this one coming, take your prayers, your heart, and everything else to Jesus. If you’re struggling with impure thoughts with someone not your spouse, take that mess to Jesus. Do not try to fix such things on your own; because, demons, sin, and this world don’t play fair.

Next is also obvious but so many people struggle with it, open communication matched with honesty.  Talk to your spouse, be open and real with them. Communication, not belittling or words of abuse, but good communication is a must. Rainy and I do our best communicating when we’re on walks out front of our home just far away from everything. Find what works for you and get to talking. For us it’s walks, thanks to the outdoors, the lack of distractions, and something about moving that makes us more vocal.

I’ll stop at this last one, and it too isn’t anything new, letters. Write notes to each other. Not every letter has to be a four-page love letter with hours of pinched out details to make your spouse weep joyful tears. Those are great, but you can also just write a short sentence on your bathroom mirror. Leave a silly text in the middle of the day, or write a list of the things you love about your spouse and surprise them with it later that day. Letters are old school, and yet, they still work. They work, because, if you write with emotion and effort to open up to your lover, they respond.

Side Note: I did have a girl I really liked, until I found out she didn’t care about things from the heart. What mattered to her was how much money you had to spend on gifts for her. Letters and anything from the heart were second rate, not dismissed, but not the thing that would grab her attention. Once I learned this my desire for her died quicker than a gold fish from a circus that was rolling through town. So, yes, there are those people out there that are material based. I ran from such.

Back on topic: If you’re willing, give the Notes-In-a-Book experiment a try, and maybe you and yours will find something to enjoy. Rainy put our first book, basically a book full of short, nightly, letters from me, in her letter box. She has a large box in our closet where she stores all the letters I write her. She likes to get them down and go over them sometimes. Our book is in there now, and perhaps this next will end up in there too.

Trust that Jesus Loves You.