Ok, the title of my post may be a tad dramatic and you may be thinking, why is she blaming Pinterest for her marriage problems? But bear with me here. It takes a bit of explaining 🙂
Did anyone else grow up dreaming of their wedding? What it would be like to have all eyes on them in a beautiful white dress with their dad walking them down the aisle and having your husband tear up looking at you? Well I did, and with Pinterest it was even easier and way more fun to dream about my wedding. I would pin for hours and would dream about how magnificent my wedding would be. I became a Pin-aholic and the consequences were not pretty.  I would look at other people’s wedding pictures on Pinterest, which looked like perfection and visualize that would be me. Everything was about the wedding. Everything was about me.
Pinterest made my wedding dream a reality, but I got so caught up in planning my wedding on Pinterest that I neglected actually planning my marriage.
All I cared about was making sure people were going to think my wedding was unforgettable. So fast forward to my wedding day, it was beautiful, it was fun, we had an ice cream bar, a photobooth, we had good southern seafood, and of course we had Chick-Fil-A too. We danced all night and had the best time.
So when I woke up the next day why wasn’t I in the land of happily ever after?
My first thought was, “Oh.My.Gosh. I am married and this is forever. I hadn’t thought about that AT ALL before the wedding because I was so consumed with planning the perfect wedding. I didn’t know how to piece together what I had just gotten myself into. Sure I loved Corey very much, but did I love him enough to be with him forever? Why didn’t I think about this before the wedding? I was so distracted with the pretty things of wedding planning that I didn’t consider what marriage meant.
Can I just be real here?
For the first 2 years of my marriage I was miserable. I was a christian, but I wasn’t actively pursuing God or an intimate relationship with Him on a daily basis. However, the state of my marriage catapulted me into seeking God. I would wake up 3 hours before I had to go to work just to read and worship God wondering why this happened to me. Why am I so miserable when newlyweds are supposed to be blissfully happy? Well, God met me after months of praying, seeking, and knocking. I fell in love with Him and His goodness. My marriage hadn’t changed yet, but I had changed.  And because Jesus changed me, the state of our marriage was about to change. I realized the reason I was miserable was because of me. I was incredibly selfish. I made my marriage revolve around me and my needs. It was all about pleasing me, I never compromised. Corey on the other hand, was always compromising. My marriage was not like the pinterest pictures. But then, there’s God.
Once I fell in love God, He started to show me areas of my life that needed a major makeover. He told me my marriage would never survive if I kept living for myself, He showed me the analogy of Christ and The Church, and allowed precious friends to speak wisdom into my life. By the grace of God I started living for others, especially my husband. He could see an immediate change. Change is what happens when we surrender our lives to Christ and allow Him to radiate from within us.  I had to realize not only is marriage about being selfless, it is about choosing to love that person everyday. And people can tell you that all day long, but you have to decide for yourself that you want to see a change and realize a distraught marriage is not God’s best for you.
Emotions are so fickle, if I would have relied on my emotion of not being in love, we would have been divorced in a hot second. But marriage is about serving your help mate.  And it took me literally years to learn that. We will make 3 years in October, and wow I can see the fingerprints of God all over our marriage. For me personally, if our marriage would have started off great, I don’t think I would have ever learned how to rely on God, I don’t think I ever would have asked Him for help, or fallen in love with Him.
Am I happy that our first 2 years were not so great? Of course not. However, I am so thankful for Gods faithfulness of His word where it says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8  He drew near to me and I discovered Him all over again. I could never love Corey with all of my heart unless I first loved God with all of my heart.  You can’t love someone with all of your heart unless you know what love is.  What is love? The Bible says in 1 John 4:8 “God is love.”  So I had to fall in love with God before I could give my heart to Corey.
I just want to encourage anyone going through a valley in their marriage. Hit your knees, open His word, and pray boldly. Restoration will come but it’s not going to be an overnight success. You have to choose to live like Christ, you have to choose to pursue God, you have to choose to love your husband even when the butterflies have left. I have seen Gods faithfulness first hand, He will not leave you brokenhearted. When God heals your marriage, you will see His fingerprints all throughout your journey. The most powerful tool is prayer and Gods word. One of my friends going through a similar situation said while her husband is sleeping she prays over him and for their marriage. I think thats a amazing!
All Glory belongs to Him. In the end, marriage is not a pinterest board, most of those pictures are staged photo shoots and not real life, so don’t think your marriage is going to be some DIY fantasy just because 1,000 people pinned a picture. Instead of spending hours on pinterest before my wedding, I should have been spending hours with my heavenly Father seeking His guidance and wisdom.
Have you witnessed Gods faithfulness in your marriage? Don’t be afraid to share your story, you are not alone! I think it encourages other women when we become open and honest about our struggles, and point each other to Gods word and His promises.
Haylee
Latest posts by Haylee (see all)
- Holiday To Do List - December 19, 2014
- Worship is Never Wasted - December 4, 2014
- {DIY} Marble Serving Tray - October 28, 2014
Haylee, this makes my heart so happy. You are such a gifted writer! I am so so thankful for your friendship and beautiful heart for Jesus. I love you!
Girl, our first 4 years were rough!!! We were in counseling and worked on ourselves for a good 2.5 years before I thought we might make it. We made 7 years last October and had our baby girl in November. We sought humility and God and it made all the difference!
You make some great points here. We should stop planning for the wedding and plan for the marriage. Thanks for linking up at Tips and Tricks link party. Pinned.
This is so true! It’s so easy to get caught up in the “wordly” things and forget about the basics: God, Family & Friends. Thanks for sharing! P.S. I found your blog through Party on the Porch
I appreciate your honesty, Haylee. I’m glad I got married before the age of Pinterest. I think it does make life harder instead of easier often times for girls nowadays. Preparing for the marriage as the real thing, the lasting thing, often gets neglected in those planning months prior to the wedding. Thanks for sharing!
How true, I often look at the picture perfect homes, etc on pinterest or in magazines and feel discouraged for not measuring up, or spend time planning my home on pinterest and not actually doing anything in my home. I needed this reminder that it is what our everyday lives lived for God look like that is important 🙂 thanks for linking up at Wake Me Up Wednesday!
Thank you for sharing so openly!
I agree that it’s hard not to compare when looking at social media, but I must remember that most of the time we see the happy posts and not reality.
Interesting. I have a board on Pinterest for wedding ideas, it’s true, but I also have a board for pins on relationship articles, things that I feel personify what marriage should be like. Pinterest REFLECTS who we already are, it doesn’t MOLD us.
Yeah I totally agree. I let my situation get a little out of control and became obsessed with it, so it was probably a little more intense for me 🙂
looooooooooooooooooooove this thanx for insight
The first 40 years are the hardest! Lol