When You Wish Your Marriage Were Extraordinary
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Better yet, I’d love to connect with you in person. I’m scheduling speaking commitments for the remainder of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. I’d be delighted to join you at a special ministry event this year.
Over at Encouragement for Today, I’m sharing why gravel may be the secret to extraordinary love. I hope you’ll hop over to P31’s website and be encouraged.
But before you go, keep reading to learn how a houseplant and a little girl taught me one of the best kept marriage secrets (Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for today’s give-away at the end of this post!)
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I was standing with my seven-year-old in the middle of our small town discount store while she tried to pick out a potted plant to place by the window in her room. She’d been asking for weeks if she could please have something of her own to grow. And I’d promised that we’d find something beautiful.
I’d pictured going to a local greenhouse when the snow gave way to spring and helping my girl pick out her very own bright blossoms of splendor. But on that bleak winter’s day, as we raced through the store for diapers and toilet paper, bacon and bath soap, Hannah had been drawn to the display of straggly houseplants at the end of the toothpaste aisle.
And even though I was in a hurry, something deep inside had told me to slow my cart and pause. My daughter flashed me a grateful smile and studied each plant. She poked her fingers in the humble soil and stroked each silky bloom. And, finally, she reached for the pot with the humble green and ivory leaves.
“Don’t you want one that has flowers?” I asked, pointing to the dainty pink flowers shaped like delicate teardrops.
“Or something more unusual?” I suggested as I wiggled the pot holding a cactus. “You could pretend you lived in a desert if you put this thing in your room.”
My daughter giggled but refused my offer. Instead, she wrapped her slender fingers around that plain little houseplant with the green and ivory leaves and flashed me a satisfied smile. “No thanks,” she replied. “I want this one.”
I shrugged my shoulders and turned my cart toward the cash register. Hannah followed and we parked ourselves at the end of a snaking line, then began to unload the contents of our overflowing cart. The cashier cast us a harried smile, and my daughter reached to the bottom of the cart and grabbed the crimson coffee cup tucked beneath the bulky package of toilet paper.
“Don’t forget this,” she reminded me.
The mug was a birthday gift for a friend, but the sight of that shiny porcelain stirred a memory from long ago…
Suddenly, I was a young bride again, hunched over the shards of a shattered coffee cup on the sticky kitchen floor of our little rental house. It wasn’t an important mug or a dire tragedy, but the depressing drizzles of cold coffee and jagged porcelain just seemed to be a picture of my daily life filled with messes and mishaps, tears and tantrums.
Our newborn was wailing in the baby swing, her sad sing-song an eerie echo of my cries. And my toddler was adding to the cacophony of cries as he whined in his little red time out chair. Frustrated with being disciplined for throwing Mommy’s coffee cup across the room in a fit of anger, my son chanted for a “new parent.” I want Daddy! I want Daddy!
I want your Daddy, too, I thought to myself. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d lingered long over a cup of coffee or curled up together on the couch at the end of the day. As my husband pursued his degree and tried to keep our little family afloat, our life had become a juggle of coupon clipping and diaper changing, midnight feedings and all night study sessions. My days with our little ones were long and my husband’s time was short. It was a season, I told myself. But it felt endless and ordinary. Monotonous and un-marvelous.
My tears of discouragement dripped onto that old green linoleum and pooled around the porcelain pieces right beneath my chin. And I realized that I wasn’t crying over the broken pieces of a coffee mug or the angry outburst of a cranky preschooler; I was crying over the broken pieces of my own quiet dream, my dream of what an extraordinary marriage looks like.
When I vowed to love my man ’til death do us part, I dreamed that our marriage would be marked by a flourishing love that grew more beautiful with time. And, to be honest, I’d assumed that a remarkable love would grow best in the midst of magic moments– candle light dinners and exotic vacations, late night strolls and breakfast in bed.
But when those “magic moments” got swallowed up by diapers and dishes, bills and babies, our love began to feel more ordinary than extraordinary, more exhausting than exotic. And slowly, my heart began to grow heavy with an unspoken disappointment.
I confessed those feeling to an older, wise woman at my church one day. I cautiously shared my fear that my marriage would suffocate beneath the weight of the daily grind and never be remarkable. And that wise one who had been married for fifty golden years looked me in the eye and spoke this very simple truth—
“Honey,” she said, with a knowing nod, “Extraordinary marriages are grown in the ordinary moments of life.”
I must have stood there in silence for quite a while, because she’d wrapped her arms around me and said it once more, this time like a quiet drum beat for my aching soul.
“Extraordinary marriages are grown in the ordinary moments of life.”
I didn’t immediately trade my frustration for joy, but I did adopt a new prayer each morning as I rose.
Jesus, open my eyes to see the extraordinary beauty in this ordinary day.
And little by little, I began to see glimpses of the marvelous in our mundane, slivers of the remarkable in our daily routine–
Mercy given in the middle of the mess, giggles trumping the grimaces, joy rising above the routine, hope growing in the midst of the ho hum.
I learned to pause in the midst of the daily grind and give thanks for the gifts tucked in the middle of the flurry and the mess. And soon, I began to see that our love was flourishing right there in the soil of ordinary life.
Have you seen it, too?
When we speak life instead of death, faith instead of fear, and peace instead of discord, it’s extraordinary!
When we pray instead of fight, listen instead of lecture, and hold on instead of let go, it’s extraordinary!
When we choose to celebrate instead of decimate and freely give instead of take, it’s extraordinary!
One evening long after I’d cleaned up the pieces of that shattered coffee cup, I listened to my husband sing a worship song while he washed the dishes, and I savored the sound of my children’s laughter ringing through the yard as their daddy chased them across the emerald green. And when I climbed into bed, exhausted and worn, I relished the gentle caress of my man’s toes tangled with mine in that space beneath the covers.
And on that ordinary night, my heart swelled with gratitude. Because an extraordinary marriage may not be glamorous, but it is nothing short of glorious!…
Hannah’s little plant scooted down the conveyer belt and landed right next to the cash register.
The check-out lady stared at the straggly shoots of green and raised a bushy eyebrow. “Did you see the gorgeous roses we’ve got on sale over there?” she asked my little girl as she pointed over her shoulder to a nearby shelf. “Do you want to trade your plant for one of those?” she asked, kindly.
“No thanks,” Hannah replied as she hugged that little pot close to her heart. “I’ll just take this ordinary plant. I think it’s beautiful.”
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Today I’m giving away a fun little box of conversation starters for husbands and wives.
It’s the perfect gift to add some spark to a hum-drum day. You can use these while you’re sitting at the dinner table, traveling in the car, or curled up on the couch together.
Just tell me about one “ordinary” thing that makes you marriage extraordinary, and I’ll enter your name in a drawing to win. Winner will be chosen on Friday, May 27.
Thank you… For the Lord speaking thru you to help us focus on what is important… And praiseworthy….Even more so during harder days….and seasons of marriage…
He sends me flowers every morning and sometimes later in the day, by texting me photos of flowers with a little good morning greeting. (I return the favor with pics of our grandkids that I find online (he’s not on FB).
Thank you so much for this post. I often take for granted how wonderful my husband truly is. Whenever he goes out to lunch at work he always brings me the cookie that comes with his lunch. I love that he does this, and not because I now have a cookie, but because it shows me that no matter how busy he gets he’s thinking of me.
I love sitting in the living room in our own respective chairs and doing our own thing, but just knowing that he’s over there makes me feel so blessed.
Alicia – I’m late to the scene here with reading your post, but I just wanted to take a moment to say, “thank you,” for sharing your heart! I especially appreciated your statement, “Extraordinary marriages are grown in the ordinary moments of life.” I wrote it in my little book of quotes to keep close for the future! Powerful! Blessings to you!
It seems silly and a little sad if I think too much about it, but, my husband is an extremely hard worker. Always busy. Always lending a helping had. It use to make me feel lonely and sow bitterness in my heart, but now when I look out the window and see him hunched over a friends car engine, building the garage or putting up our fence, my heart smiles that I was blessed with a hard working man.
When my husband feeds the cows, knowing that they make me nervous when they rush to the feed wagon. When he buys me a Diet Mountain Dew at the gas station. When he bows his head and prays, setting a lovely example for my step-son.
I got a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes the other day when I thought back to the 2 years that we dated before we got married (3 years ago on the 31st!) and remember how he came over to my mom’s house, where I was living, every evening after work and then drove home late at night, just so we could sit on the couch together and talk or watch TV.
God is good and extraordinary marriages are built, little gravel stone by little gravel stone.
Football. My husband coaches football for the high school and it takes up a lot of his time leaving me with the wifely duties of chores and kids. Although I know he loves it I’m not always the most supportive, and reading this has opened my eyes to his non complaining when I want something or to go do something. And when it isn’t football season we still talk about the players progression and the new incoming players and what to hope for the next season.
Something that made me love him all over again is when I really payed attention to how he loves and plays with our girls. I forgot that that’s so important to what kind of husband he is
We met at a christian singles group and I am two years older than my husband.God’s mercies are new every morning. My husband has always told me and our children that everything looks better in the morning. We have 4 children and have been married 43 years.
My husband cooks breakfast and dinner a lot, which is a big help to our family and quite extraordinary to me!
I make his lunch every work day. And we hug and kiss goodbye each morning as he guess off to work.
Rhonda
When my husband of almost forty years takes the time from his job and go to all of my doctors appts with me and he still calls me everyday from work to say hello, is anything you need me to bring home and also to say I love you. We are still High School sweethearts! that s EXTRAORDINARY! PRAISE GOD FOR THE ORDINARY THINGS IN LIFE!
When one of us share a thought and the other one has the same thought as well especially when it comes to blessing someone in our lives. It makes our ordinary marriage extraordinary.
My husband asks me EVERY morning, “Did you sleep well?” It’s just a little question, but he lets me know he cares.
When I sit back and be still I can see the work the Lord is doing in my family and marriage. It may not be in things that necessarily make me happy or in things that I want, but it’s His work and it’s in His way for our better. When He shows me that is extraordinary!
His grace is extraordinary when ours is ordinary
My marriage has been a struggle for all 25 years of it. What is ordinary that makes our marriage extraordinary is that we laugh together daily. It keeps us connected on some level.
My husband and I send sweet text messages to each other throughout the day as a way to encourage one another.
Without hesitation we both clean up supper and do the dishes before moving on to the next activity in the evening. I don’t enjoy “chores” but I dislike them a lot less when my hubby is also participating 🙂 Thanks for your words of wisdom!
That after years of heartache and loss, we now tuck our three kiddos into bed together every night. That ordinary journey led to extraordinary connection and extraordinary blessing. ~thankful~
My husband gets up every night to help with diaper changes, lights up when he sees our baby boy, and still opens the car door for me.
He has tea ready for me when I
Even though we are busy with 5 kids and the endless stuff that needs are attention. He always finds ways to make me feel like a princess. Flowers, food, bringing me glasses of water when nursing the baby. He encourages me and tells me that he wish his mom would have been like me.
God has blessed me so much with him!
My husband still reaches for my hand, every time we go out in public! 😊
When we get home from work and just sit in the lawn chairs watching the kids play, and we just chat about our day. It gives us a moment together before he has to go do cow chores and I have to get the kids fed and in bed.
Many times our days are filled with work, running the kids to practice or games, grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, and the ordinary everyday things. Some days my husband and I pass one another and it feels like we are just two roommates, trying to raise our kids together. But then he will look at me, just me, and my heart smiles. I can’t really explain it, but it reminds me that we are so much more than just roommates. He’s the man I fell in love with, the man I married and promised to spend the rest of my life with. He is such a wonderful blessing from God.
My marriage has been exactly like what you stated. It’s hard to say, because there’s been so much unhappiness. After reading your devotional I feel like I live with a roommate, but I do know that we need to both sit back from the everyday things & look closer at how we can grow!
My husband and I are getting closer to being empty nesters – one teenager just left, and the last two are very independent. We are having fun doing the little things – feeding our chickens, eating dinner on the deck, walking our dogs out to the apple orchard – just ordinary stuff we haven’t done for years. Thanks for the reminder to enjoy the “ordinary” 🙂
Just saying “welcome home” when I or one of the kids walks through the door and comes to that person to welcome them with his presence, his attention, his sweet smile, even a short, painful one-arm hug due to nerve damage in his back which prevents him from doing very much physical, even affectionate, gestures.
Thank you, I really needed to read this today; it opened the eyes of my heart to the “extraordinary” 😉
My husband helps me clean stalls and feed horses 🙂 It’s such a mundane task but the fact that he helps me with something that is my passion, not his, is extraordinary!
Thank you for today’s beautiful post, Alicia!
So wanting/needing to find the extraordinary out of the ordinary!
Thank you for sharing your encouraging words!
He cooks dinner!
The definition of ordinary is “of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional.” The definition of extraordinary is “very unusual or remarkable” While these are two opposites, I feel the ordinary thing that makes my marriage extraordinary is the refusal to not give up on one another or our marriage- we continuously encourage one another. It is no coincidence that the past few days have been rough and I’ve wanted to give up on marriage and life but I saw this article and felt like God used Alicia Bruxvoort to speak directly to me. My ordinary marriage is extraordinary because we are a team who refuses to give up.
This post is perfect. It brings back so many memories of when our children were little and the feelings I had back then. My husband and I have always had a saying “we are in this for life” knowing that he was always there and was my best friend. It made the hard days a bit easier. Now that the kids are grown we still are best friends making time for special dates together. But we also make time for our family to have fun together.
Can I just be honest? This devotional and blog post came in perfect timing because I was just pouring my heart out to the Lord this morning about this very thing. I asked him to give me hope to believe things could be better than the ordinary doldrums we find ourselves in right now (not just circumstances but moreso in my heart and thoughts), and that He would change my heart to be excited about my husband once again. Often I fail to “feel” anything about this, but I do appreciate that my husband is always faithful to our family and puts us before his own needs/wants. He sends me to my room for a quiet moment while he puts the kids to bed when I’ve had an especially long or tiring day, he empties the dishwasher every morning while feeding the kids breakfast, and does a lot around the house (laundry, picking up, etc).
I so enjoyed this post today and your devotional. My husband will work all day and still come home and help out around the house. I love when we share the chore of dishes together.
There was a look my husband woud give me across the toughness of family life that would touch my soul. No words needed, because I knew Ithat smile meant “We will make it, we are in this together”. ” I love you and am comitted no matter what”.
That my husband wants to spend time with me. That we enjoy each other’s company. That he helps me with household things and I help him with yard things so that we can just be together.
I would like to give this to my parents who will be celebrating 60 years on May 27. No, it has not been easy but they have somehow managed 60 years together which is almost unheard of these days.
Thanks for the words of encouragement this morning but I’m so afraid we have lost the ordinary moments
I have been married just 2.5 years and I don’t have an extraordinary marriage as I thought. Reading over all the great comments, it saddens me because I don’t believe my husband loves me. There are so many other people that are his priorty.
Dear Dee, I know exactly how you feel, I was once in the exact place you are. In that time of doubt and uncertainty in my marriage it was difficult to feel loved or to love. But remember God honors our marriages and he is always there to help us through. I began to pray that GOD would love my husband through me. I began to see little changes as I loved my husband even when I felt he did not love me. We have now been married for 23 years, they have not all been amazing years but they are ours, they are special and together we made it. God will help you through, Just ask him. I will be praying for you to find those extraordinary moments in the mundane. God Bless you!
Dear Dee:
My heart hurts for you. You are still a young bride and I remember being there many years ago. I too was afraid my husband didn’t love me as much as I loved him. It is called insecurity. How could he possibly love me? Start by writing down each day one thing that he does that you love about him. You will find that through this you’ll see many ways he shows his love for you and you will love him even more. He will notice the change in you and you will both be happier.
Just holding hands. I’m about to be married in July and we have both talked at length about not getting lost in the daily stuff. We were both married before and we have committed to not stop holding hands and talking (communication builds intimacy).
When my husband and I find the little joys in our daughter’s Autism.
We love to play board games together. It’s our “date” night. It’s simple, yet it is something we both look forward to.
My husband and I leave notes for each other on the refrigerator dry erase board, and we will text each other during the work day just to check in and say “I love you.” We also celebrate on the 25th of each month and say “Happy 25th,” as we were married on July 25th. This gives us at minimum a once-a-month special outing. Sometimes we just to get a biscuit in the morning before work, and other times we go out for dinner and a movie.
My husband and I enjoy singing together! Thank you for this wonderful post!
My husband and I take a minute to text or he calls me just to say hi when he has a break at work. Such a simple thing, but it connects us in the middle of a busy day. I think even something as ordinary as a text or phone call can help a couple to connect when they are apart during the day. Plus, it helps me to know he’s thinking of me though he’s busy; it’s nice knowing he cares enough to connect even if it’s only for a short conversation:)
No matter how many seizures I have in my sleep, he just holds me and loves me no matter what.
My husband farms. He now works my Dad’s farm. I constantly tell him that it’s not for the money, but for the lifestyle that we are providing for our children.
My husband makes time for me and our two daughters even though he works two jobs. He helps clean, cook, plays basketball with the girls after work and still tells me how much he adores me. God blessed me with a wonderful man and a great father. And this is all after 23 years together!
Never having been a parent he embraced my two adult sons as his own and while trying not to be a father ( they sort of have one ). He became instead a Dad and friend…. At their ages he definitely did not have to. But chose to. All this because of his love for me. And I thank God for that. Even in the lean times we find laughter and hope.
My husband works hard every day. But one thing he doesn’t miss is kissing me goodbye and hello when he leaves and comes home.
Bedtime prayers together.
This was a great reminder of how only God knows what can be beautiful to you even when no one else can see the true gem amidst the stones! I’m particularly thankful that even though our marriage of 8 years has been overrun with chaos and stress, no matter what, my husband always kisses me goodbye before he leaves for work and checks on me when he gets home at 5 in the morning, which means considerably more since our two year old has not wanted to let me sleep in my own bed for a bit!
When he stops at WalMart after working a 12 hour shift (6am-6pm) to get milk, bread, and my favorite juice so its there when the kids and I wake up😊.
Listening to a long distance phone call from him.
In spite of the difficult days we are facing, we remind ourselves daily that we are in this together.
I love that he waters all my hanging baskets tirelessly, and doesn’t correct others when people give me the credit for how beautiful they are!
Thank you for this reminder to see the extraordinary in the mundane, I need to be reminded.
My husband of 21 years still brings me home “surprises” at least once a week. Sometimes it’s a cookie or candy bar other times it’s a card or a drawing that he doodled while at lunch. I have kept every drawing and carving he has made for me. I treasure each of them. I also have kept every single ticket stub of every time we went to the movies.
We take time right before we fall asleep to share something about our day at work or a special moment we had with one of our kids. Cherishing that moment together before we both fall asleep.
He makes me laugh at the most simple things!!
Our marriage of 42 years and five children has survived many military deployments . My husband served 23 years and our duty stations kept us far from family. We would pack up our old station wagon and drive hundreds of miles in all types of weather conditions. Our simple joy of stopping at a rest area picinic table to enjoy the plain lunch that I packed was an ordinary event that reminds me how blessed I am . We were very frugal and did not spend money on ourselves. But the miles and hours travelling in a car to visit family are some precious memories of how our love is special.
So many little ordinary things that strengthen our marriage and make my heart flutter. A Simple 20 minutes outdoors either hiking or biking or playing catch. Or that he’ll make my eggs every morning. He does my laundry – that’s ordinary yet extraordinary. And Everytime we do our weekly groceries, we buy eachother our favourite chocolate bar. — JV
Whenever I go out we kiss and he tells me to be careful.
I will never forget one of the most mundane moments that illustrated my husbands love for me. We were fighting and it was pouring rain. I don’t remember where we were going, but we had someplace we needed to be. And we went to the car and he opened and held the door for me –in the rain.
We take time to connect during our lunch breaks
My husband and I have busy work schedules. We look forward to Saturday evening date nights, where we go to a local restaurant and just enjoy each other’s company for a couple of hours.
We dreamed for sixteen years of making a little homestead for our kids. God blessed us with a little over two ace. about a year 1/2 ago. We have been working hard every chance we get to turn it into our dream. Working side by side with my husband and watching our five children climb trees, play with chickens, run through the yard with the dogs, and eat the food that we grew together !!!!! Our life may look ordinary to everyone, but I know how blessed and Extraordinary it is !!!!! One of my favorite ordinary moments is when I am watching my husband building something and he looks up at me and sees me watching, then he shakes his head and gives me a smile. He has an amazing smile and he hates it when I stare at him, LOL !
As “empty-nesters”, we sit down together every night and have dinner together and talk about our day.
When he gives me a hug while I am washing dishes.
When you can’t make love anymore, but you still enjoy a warm kiss and and gentle hug!
We intentionally are sharing family time together each dusk, playing ordinary yard games like kickball and tag while laughing and engaging with our 10 and 12 yr old children, realizing how fast the time is flying by. These longer spring evenings are a total blessing to our marriage and family ♡♡
THat we love farm life and take joy in every day tasks.
When I wake up in the morning and walk into the kitchen dreading cleaning up last nights dishes only to find that my husband has not only done the clean up but has filled the kettle and set my mug on the counter beside it before he had left for work. My morning suddenly is beautiful😊
My husband kisses me first thing when he walks in the door at the end of the day. It reminds me that I am loved and that our marriage is first priority after our love for God.