It's Not Always Pretty

This post is by Gianna Kordatzky.

When I started dating my husband, I could not spend enough time with him.  The relationship was all encompassing. There was no such thing as spending too much time together. 

We were having fun getting to know each other.  

I used to think getting to know God was much like dating.  I thought I should want to be so enamored with the Lord that I couldn’t get enough of Him.  

I am learning--slowly--that a relationship with the Lord is much more like a marriage than puppy love.  The Lord even created the marriage relationship to be a picture of His relationship with the church and, by extension, with me.

...just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her  to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,  and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5:25b-28

I know all kinds of facts about Chris.  I know his height, his weight, his food preferences, his loves, his hobbies, his fears, his abilities.  I know the guy inside and out.  And still most days, there is something we haven’t navigated together.  We get through something new together. 

With this perspective, I have learned to approach my God Time with a different attitude.  I’m not necessarily doing God Time  to learn new things about Him. My God Time is used to connect with Him.

I didn’t understand when I married Chris how much more I needed to learn. Even though I was sure I loved him,   I didn’t realize how much deeper that love could grow as I lived life with him..  I didn’t realize how the ugliness of life could grow us closer farther apart.  We didn’t understand that by making the conscious choice to walk through things together instead of separately, our love would grow deeper.

Our marriage isn’t all about fun date nights and romantic moonlit dinners.  Chris and I are in the muck of life together--from the birth of our firstborn and severe postpartum depression to guiding two very different teenage girls through life, learning about epilepsy while our 10 year old  son has seizures for unknown reasons, navigating disappointments with our highly sensitive 12 year old son. We have served on mission trips together and served in Sunday School.  We have disagreed on practically every issue.  We have learned how to fight. We have learned each other’s sense of humor.  We have learned to appreciate the quirks even if we don’t like them.

I have been following Jesus since I was four, been memorizing verses since I was ten, been struggling with important ethical decisions since I was thirteen, and I still don’t know the fullness of the depths of God’s character.  To understand the Lord, we need to be in the muck of life together.  We need to cry out to Him, cry with Him, and cry aloud in joy.  We need to see His character in the midst of our despair.  And when we cry out to Him, we will see His character.

Our lives are not all sunshine and roses.  God knows that.  God has had a hand in that. He wants us to invite Him to rejoice with us.  He wants us to be vulnerable before Him. And when we are open with God, He is our personal God.  And we can know Him.  More everyday.

Gianna Kordatzky was born and raised in the “Star of the North” Minnesota. Married to her college sweetheart for 20 years, she and Chris are busy raising their four kids ranging from ages 10-15.  Gianna has trusted Jesus as her Savior since she was four years old.  She runs a small online publication called Family Fun Twin Cities and homeschools her kids.  In her spare time, she likes to read, write, be creative, and listen to podcasts. 

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash