Monday Marriage Moments {life vision}

-We love marriage just as much as we love weddings. Take a moment to prepare not just for the wedding, but for the marriage-

My brother-in-law once said that he and his wife (Paul’s sister) enjoy working together on their “life project”. It sounded sort of weird and daunting to me at first, but he explained that their life project included things like, loving one another, raising their boys to become good men, fostering their health through eating nutritional foods, providing a good education through their homeschooling, and whatever else they shared a commitment to doing together. I thought it was great to have that focus, that the two of them together had very real goals in mind that they work towards together, as a team, which last a lifetime. At the time Paul and I were not yet married so for some reason I thought that meant there was no reason for us to come up with a life project. Or maybe I just did not know what it was yet.

Then Paul and I heard another married couple that works together say almost the same thing just a couple of weeks ago. They talked about the importance of having a LIFE mission statement before your business mission statement in order to keep the business statement in check. They shared their own life mission statement with us, which was similar to my brother- and sister-in-law’s life project but with their own values and life goals. I thought it was a great idea, again. Only this time Paul and I have been married for 3 years and we have yet to make an official one of our own.

Just by going through the process of getting engaged and married we sort of did this subconsciously. While we were dating we realized that we had shared values and goals as we talked about all those big important things like faith, family, raising children, working, finances, living, etc… As a matter of fact, before Paul and I even started dating we had one of those serious conversations and afterward told my sister I think he is going to fall in love with me. He just eats up everything I say! It’s funny to remember in retrospect. I did not think I was anything special or out of the ordinary, but Paul being 5 years older than me and having been in other real relationships in the past, knew that I was not like every other girl he had dated. It’s not that I’m perfect or amazing or have it all figured out – it was just that Paul saw how well we fit together in a way that I could not at the time. So over our time together dating, engaged, and married we have found pieces of our life project, life goals, or life vision, whatever you want to call it. So now we are finally going to solidify our life vision and actually write it down on paper. I’m very excited. I’m excited to have it written down, to post it in our home, to be able to refer to it and meditate on it when we are unsure where to invest our time and energy, when we have a conflict between us, or when we lose focus for any reason. So we can come back to our life project, our life vision together as a couple and reaffirm our love and commitment to one another.

*Carolyn

to see more photos from Emily & Noah’s Engagement session, click here.