52 Weeks of Love: Jen and Micah

Thank you Jen and Micah for celebrating 52 Weeks of Love with Team Pancakes!!!

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Hi y'all! I'm Jen and I blog over at The Arizona Russums. 

Two days after returning from our honeymoon, my husband 

and I packed up a moving truck and headed down to Phoenix {from Seattle}

 to start a new adventure as newlyweds. 

I began our blog to document our life in a new city and keep in touch with people back home. 

Now we have been married for a year and half 

and I can hardly believe our two year anniversary is quickly approaching this summer

 {our wedding date was July 11th and, yes, we had a Slurpee machine at our wedding!}.

{4th of July in Arizona!}

Favorite memory from the first year of marriage...

Well besides having an amazing wedding, going on an awesome honeymoon to Hawaii, going on a wild adventure and moving to Arizona two days after getting back from said honeymoon, getting our first apartment, and finding a new church and making new friends, I just don't know... probably making up our own songs when we are hanging around the house or driving in the car.

 Micah is always making up little songs (and a rap every now and then...he will want a disclaimer), and sometimes I surprise him by joining in and making up my own words.

{c/o Chrystabel Photography}

Hardest thing about being married...

I've said it once and I'll say it again (probably countless times), 

the hardest thing about being married is I Peter 3:1. 

{Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, 

so that even if some do not obey the word, 

they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, 

when they see your respectful and pure conduct.} 

This verse is full of hard, good words. Not only am I called to submit to my husband,

 but I'm called to respect him no matter what. 

No matter how he is acting. Even if he is sinning, 

my conduct toward him should be respectful and pure according to the Lord, 

since God requires wives to treat even non-believing husbands in this same way. 

This means no uncontrollable fits of anger, name calling, revenge-seeking, 

or bitterness-harboring behavior on my part. None. 

That doesn't mean I can't tell Micah when he is wrong.

 It means that whether he is wrong or whether I think I am right, 

I am called to respect him as my leader and the head of my home. Eek.

 This verse hangs on the mirror on my bathroom,

 so I am reminded daily of what it means to be a godly wife.

{Heading down to Phoenix!}

Best thing about being married...

The best thing about being married is getting to show the world that marriage is good. 

I was struck recently by the negative view of marriage most of our society holds. 

I constantly hear jokes about splitting property in half and lots of sarcasm about divorce. 

I guess it makes sense that a lot of people have this jaded view considering that about half of the marriages today end in divorce, but that viewpoint is not right. The negative view of marriage held by a lot (even most?) of our society is not God’s point of view on marriage at all.

Sometimes marriage is very hard. 

Sometimes it is difficult to serve Micah and to submit to his plan, 

much less to do so with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. 

But I know that in the end, marriage is good. It’s God creation. 

It’s God’s plan for me and for so many others to be shaped, transformed and refined through marriage. 

So despite what the world says about marriage today, regardless of the bitterness and the sarcasm about marriage that seeps throughout our society, I urge you to believe differently. 

Marriage is worth working for, sacrificing for, fighting for. 

Just as God has said from the beginning with Adam and Eve, marriage is very good (Genesis 1:31).

The Arizona Russums

Married 556 days!

{c/o Chrystabel Photography}

Come say HI! I'd love to meet you...

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