This week my parents are in town so I’ve been extra busy spending time with them, which hasn’t left me a lot of time to blog. That said, I thought I would re-post a popular blog (written before I was married) about which I still receive a lot of feedback! A number of people find their way to my blog by searching the term “pre-engagement counseling” so this is clearly something that Christian couples are thinking about. If you find yourself at that place, I hope this post will be an encouragement to you!

Also, I have a bit of an announcement! After numerous people have asked me how to subscribe to my blog, I finally got with the program and added the feature. Now at the bottom of every post you will see a little button that says, “Subscribe.” I hope you do!

Now on to the blog….

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This past weekend my fiancé and I attended a retreat for engaged couples who are preparing for marriage. At the beginning of the weekend we were presented with information about our culture’s stance toward marriage, and we heard one statistic that I found particularly compelling:

90% of American young people believe that premarital counseling is a good thing to do, but only about 35% would actually consider doing it.

I was not given a source for this statistic so I honestly have no way of verifying its accuracy, but based upon my own experience I am not surprised. I have talked to a lot of couples, Christian and non-Christian, who respond warmly to the idea of other people doing premarital counseling, but when faced with the option to do it themselves, they opt out. Why? Because it sounds good, but not necessary. Only couples with “big problems” need that kind of thing.

This rationale would appear to stem out of two different causes–gross naiveté on the part of the couple, or flat-out denial. Either they have no idea how hard marriage is, or they have some inkling that their relationship isn’t healthy but they don’t want to deal with it. They’ve already decided to get married, they’ve paid for the food and the band, and there’s no turning back.

That’s why some churches have begun offering pre-engagement counseling. At first I thought this was a weird idea–as a single person, even a dating person, I actively avoided talking and thinking about marriage. No need to count my chickens before they’ve hatched, right? I was attempting to guard my imagination, and more importantly my heart.

The problem with my thought process was that it underestimated the momentum of planning a wedding. Once you begin the process of planning it’s like you get on board a giant locomotive and there’s no way to stop it. Had I realized that Ike was not the man for me, I cannot imagine the pain and hardship of canceling the wedding, or even just delaying it. Aside from the financial loss, it would be humiliating and emotionally devastating. In the short-term, it would seem much easier to just go through with it.

Which is why it’s so important for young couples to begin seeking godly counsel BEFORE the train gets going. Married couples already have the odds stacked against them, so given the soaring divorce rates you’d think engaged couples would be sobered into seeking every resource possible. When one in two marriages is failing, doesn’t it make sense to ensure that you’re NOT on the wrong side of the statistics? Wouldn’t you rather do the hard work of confronting your issues and asking the tough questions before you get married, instead of hoping for the best?

Unfortunately, this type of reasoning rarely takes place during engagement. While some couples DO break off their engagement, many choose to ignore the warning signs because they are blinded by the prospect of getting married. The end is in sight so they delude themselves into thinking that marriage will fix everything, even though marriage statistics would indicate otherwise.

So if you are in a serious dating relationship and the topic of marriage arises, I would encourage you to seek counsel BEFORE the proposal–though you might do so separately at first. Prior to taking on the 300 pound gorilla that is wedding planning, make sure you’re moving forward wisely and soberly. Even in dating it is difficult to have clear vision and an objective perspective, but if you are hesitant to have an outside opinion weighing in even NOW, then that’s a red flag.

Don’t hope for the best, don’t count on the other person to change, and don’t ignore the input of your friends and family. Breaking up with a boyfriend or fiancé is hard, but being in a bad marriage is much, much harder.

As a person who loves to do ministry through writing, it’s been an awesome privilege to write for a webzine called Ungrind. Designed for women and written by women, this online publication addresses one topic a month and features various articles dealing with that topic. The topic for August was “comfort,” and I wrote an article that is currently being featured on the site.

Below I have inserted a bit of a teaser with a link to the rest of the article at the end. But I also encourage you to check out the entire site! There are a lot of fantastic female writers who contribute to it, and the editor herself is especially talented. I know you’ll find it to be a great source encouragement as you read the thoughts and insights of women who are living life in pursuit of Christ.

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Excerpt from “The Comforter”

Four summers ago, I made a memory I wish I could forget. It’s the kind of memory that makes me cringe every time I recall it. I try to push it out of my brain as quickly as I can. When I do think on it, I am filled with regret.

I worked at a local hospital as a chaplain. I was interning there as part of my seminary education, and the work was emotionally grueling. After a few days of training I was thrown into the deep end to either sink or swim. I counseled pregnant teenagers, and comforted families through the illness of a loved one. I rushed to the ER when a trauma arrived and contacted the victim’s family. I sat with them and offered prayer after the doctor informed them of their loss. It was rewarding work, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

It was also the occasion for one of my greatest regrets.

To finish reading, click here.

Some of you who know me and my husband know this has been a really stressful time for us. Ike is in the throes of applying to PhD programs. He wants to study theology so we’ve been looking at schools all over the country and the world.

Now let me begin by saying that I totally underestimated this process. The other day I ran into a friend who’s going through the same thing, and she confessed that she’s irritable all the time, snaps at her mom and roommate regularly, and cries once a week. Yikes! But I can see where she’s coming from. In a sense, this next step judges the quality and value of her last 3 years of work. You’re essentially putting yourself out there to be judged by really important people. It’s no wonder Ike’s been grumpy.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been the most supportive wife. I keep giving him great advice like, “You wanna study theology, don’t you? Then why don’t you just trust God!” Not super helpful. Or encouraging. Or sensitive.

We’ve continued to butt heads over this matter–him being stressed, me responding with super-spiritual advice–and then I came upon an insight that was just the kick in the pants I needed. I was reading Wendy Alsup’s blog “Practical Theology for Women,” and she drew a parallel between joblessness and infertility that opened my eyes to what Ike is feeling. She wrote:

First of all, have you personally struggled with infertility or miscarriage? If so, you are uniquely equipped now to better understand your husband’s burdens with his job. If you haven’t struggled with child bearing issues, try to think about how you would feel if you had — if all your friends were easily getting pregnant and telling you what worked for them but none of it worked for you. If your vision for your future involved raising children but you realized your powerlessness to accomplish that on your own. In my own experience, I found very clear parallels between my struggles with fears and insecurities when I confronted the fact I may not be able to have children and my husband’s emotional struggles when faced with unemployment and job insecurity.

One thing I noted when I was struggling with infertility was that advice on what to do and things to try was helpful at times. At other times, it just added a weight to an already overtaxing burden. Similarly, during the near year my husband was unemployed, he was glad to try most any and everything anyone suggested. More on his resume. Less on his resume. Try this company. Try that company. But there came a point when every good suggestion he was given didn’t produce any fruit. And he needed a definite break from well meaning advice on what to try next.

To read the whole blog click here.

Wendy’s words were kind of an epiphany for me. First, it helped me to conceptualize my husband’s struggles in a way I hadn’t before. Though the circumstances are different from losing a job, the pressures are essentially the same. He’s trying to get into school, and our future hinges on it. That is a pressure he feels very uniquely from me. Thinking of it in terms of my own “source of meaning” was helpful.

But more importantly, her words are a template on how to give advice, and how not to. Most Christians, and most people for that matter, are terrible at giving advice. We approach it from a “here’s how to fix it” kind of perspective. Even when that perspective is clothed in language about God, you’re doing the same thing. Wendy’s words reminded me that before giving advice, I need to enter into the person’s space. Imagine what they’re feeling and thinking, and respond accordingly. I need to be quick to listen and slow to speak. I need to let them define the terms of what they need, instead of me.

So while her words were specific to marriage, the underlying approach is prescriptive for all Christians.

Giving advice is an art. We have to study it before we can really get good at it. Clearly I have a lot of learning to do. So as I learn how to be a better wife, as well as a better bringer of wisdom and comfort, I think I’ll use Proverbs 10:19 as my guide:

“When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.”

Today I’m going to begin by taking a little survey, and I want you to be honest:

Raise your hand if you watch The Hills. (Go ahead and raise it–I can’t see you)

Apparently The Hills is one of the top rated shows on television right now, and although I don’t watch it anymore, I used to very faithfully. It’s pretty addictive.

And for those of you who are in the dark, The Hills is a reality show that follows the lives of several young women in their early 20′s living in Los Angeles. Each of the girls featured on the show has subsequently become a celebrity in her own right, being featured in commercials and invited to A-list events. It’s quite a phenomenon.

The key storyline of this show surrounds the friendship between Lauren, the main character, and her best friend Heidi. The two were inseparable roommates doing life together. That is, until a boy entered the scene.

Heidi began dating a guy named Spencer, and Lauren did not approve. Lauren felt that Spencer didn’t respect Heidi and that he would hurt her, so she took a stand. As a result, their friendship disintegrated. Now, they are bitter enemies.

Now the reason this plot line came to my mind is that this weekend I was flipping through channels when I came to a “Deleted Scenes” show about The Hills. I watched for a few moments, and caught one scene in which Lauren confronts another friend, Audrina, about a guy that she’s dating. This guy is bad news as well, but Audrina doesn’t want to hear it. She’s gonna do what she’s gonna do, and she warns Lauren about “caring too much.” Sometimes that care can push people away.

As the camera cuts to Lauren, her face provides a not-so-subtle reminder that it was this same “caring too much” that pushed Heidi away.

Oh the drama!

Now as much as I hate to say it, The Hills provides us with a very important life lesson. It addresses a dilemma that we’ve all faced at some point or another–What do you do when your roommate, best friend or family member is dating someone you don’t like?

In the Christian world, this problem typically surfaces when a friend of ours starts dating a non-Christian, or has started dating someone under dishonorable circumstances. But how are we to respond?

There is a tendency in Christians to “call someone out,” but unless you have a history of this kind of interaction working, it rarely goes over well. On the contrary, it will usually result in defensiveness, and end up getting you nowhere.

So how do we get people to listen? It is here that James’ words in chapter 1 verse 9 are wonderful directives–”be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” Don’t make snap judgments–you only reveal your naiveté about the temptations of sin. And don’t condemn the person they’re dating–that’s merely a back-door insult about their personal dating standards.

Instead listen, and find out why they chose this particular path. See if you can get to the root of the issue, and gently point out the misperceptions they may have about the situation. Sin is deceitful, so sometimes we need someone to help us see the pitfalls we may have missed ourselves.

If this doesn’t work, you should gradually become more firm. And at some point, you need to be point-blank honest with them.

However, honesty will not always result in a change, and that is the problem that Lauren ran into on The Hills. At some point, your friends are going to do what they are going to do, and you have to let them. That is one of the most frustrating life lessons I’ve ever had to learn–letting someone fall. Sometimes, this is the best thing you can do for someone, because some people only learn the hard way.

In these situations, your role is simple–stand back, pray for them, and be there for them when the relationship ultimately fails. Never say “I told you so.” Just love them.

This is especially hard for us control freaks. We’ll say that we’ve surrendered something into God’s hands, but we won’t act like it. We’ll keep bringing the issue up, beating a dead horse, and alienating our friends in the process.

And that is the greatest danger here–when you continually rebuke a friend who isn’t responding, you’re not only strengthening their obstinacy as you put them in the position of defending themselves, but you drive a wedge between your friendship. You double your losses.

So if you find yourself in this situation, or any situation in which a friend or loved one is caught on a path of sin or bad judgment, be honest with them. But then, give them over to God. It is not your responsibility to make people pursue Christ. You can encourage them and challenge them, but at some point a person is going to make their own decisions. How you love them in the fallout of those decisions will have the far greatest power to transform them.

*Final note–if your friend is in a relationship that is abusive, or if they are struggling with substance abuse or eating disorders or some other behavior that is blatantly self-destructive, the rules are slightly different. In some extreme circumstance, people need protection from themselves and you must do your best to help them find clinical help. In instances of suicidal actions, it’s appropriate and necessary to intervene with force. Also, in the event of persistent, unrepentant sin, church discipline is an important step to consider, so talk to one of your pastors about it.

I am a terrible listener. Seriously. Whenever someone comes to me with a problem, my first reactions is to fix it with as many different nuggets of “wisdom” as I can possibly throw at them. It’s like an artillery barrage of Christian advice.

I think there’s a part of me that secretly thinks I’ll look super holy if I can offer just the right input. It can even turn into a competition–I’m trying to out-advise all other Christians, including the person I’m advising. Then they’ll think I’m pretty awesome, and hopefully tell others.

But sometimes, people just need you to listen. They don’t want you to argue, disagree, or even be helpful. They just need an ear.

Well with that in mind, I want to offer you a blog post from one of my all-time favorite blogs. It’s called Stuff Christians Like, and the title of the post is “The Judgment Olympics.” It’s hilarious, but also really true, so I hope you are as challenged by it as I am. Christian advice can often get really messed up….

I don’t get a lot of hate mail. In more than 300 posts, I have received only a handful of comments from people that sincerely don’t like me. But every now and then I get someone that wants to judge the blog.

I am cool with that. I think we need to discern and discuss and analyze. That’s good and I am going to make mistakes that need to be fixed. The challenge is that sometimes it’s so easy for discernment to mutate into judgement. And also, it’s really hard to know when someone has done a quality job of judging you.

That’s why I decided to hold the first annual Stuff Christians Like Judgment Olympics. Not only is it topical in this Olympic year but I think it will give you something great to say back to someone that says something judgmental to you. Imagine yelling “Gold Medal!” when someone in your small group says something unkind to you. Dare to dream Jon, dare to dream.

Here are the events:

1. The “I used to”
You’ve just confessed something that is going on in your life and the person across from you pauses and then says, “I used to do that a lot too before I really connected with God.” Ohhh, I used to is a powerful, powerful phrase. What this does is set up that the person you’re talking with has moved beyond what you are struggling with. When they were a sweaty Philistine they used to do what you are doing, but now that life is angelic that just don’t do that anymore.
Gold Medal

2. The “I’m with God.”
The best thing to do when you really want to judge someone is draw up sides. Make sure you take the side of God first which automatically puts the other person on the side of satan. Sound extreme and like something that doesn’t happen? It does. Here’s what it looks like: “I understand what you are saying, I guess I’m just going to go with God on this one.” Or, “I’m not telling you my opinion, I’m just telling you what the Bible and God say.” The implication is that you’re not disagreeing with the other person, you’re disagreeing with the Alpha and Omega. Which does not feel awesome.
Silver Medal

3. The “half and half”
This is probably my favorite one. In this form, you give a fake compliment, followed up by what you really feel. For example, if you don’t like a certain minister you might say, “He’s got a great ministry, unless you feel that learning about the Bible is important.” or “That’s a great song, if you don’t mind devil music.” This the equivalent of waving your hand around to make someone look at it while your foot kicks them in the groin.
Silver Medal

4. The “Judgement Squared”
This one is kind of funny. Sometimes people will judge me for being too judgmental. That’s like swimming in the ocean next to me and telling me that I’m wet. Hey, wait a second, you’re wet too, I want to say. If you ever angrily, aggressively say the sentence, “who gives you the right to judge?” then you’ve just won yourself a medal.
Bronze Medal

5. The “for me.”
This is similar to number 2, but does not have to involve throwing the God card directly. Let’s say I write a post about some kind of worship music that I think is overplayed in church. Someone reads that, and then says, “I guess for me, worship is about communing with God and not my own narcissistic sense of enjoyment.” That sounds a little extreme, but I once got in an argument with someone that read my completely silly post about holding hands and then accused me of probably not liking to touch the homeless. We ended up working it out, but the initial implication was, “You don’t like interlinking fingers with people at church? For me, touch is about loving others like Jesus. Why do you hate the homeless?”
Gold Medal

To read the whole of this post, click here.

Now here’s your homework: The next time someone comes to you for advice, I challenge you to spend as little time talking as possible. Even if there’s an awkward silence and you feel like you HAVE to fill the space, don’t. I guarantee the person you’re conversing with will keep talking–they just need that silence to process their own thoughts. I can’t tell you how many people have told me what great advice I gave them, when they actually came to the conclusion on their own…I just happened to be sitting next to them.

So try it. Not only will you be a much better listener, but you significantly decrease your chances of winning a medal in the Judgment Olympics.