Monthly Archives: April 2013

The Unpopularity Contest

In this day and age, I know many of my beliefs are unpopular. In general, I try to stay out of controversy, especially politics, because that’s just not where my passions are. I just try to live true to what I believe. I do not expect others, who don’t believe the same as me, to behave as though they believe. I only ask for all to allow me to be myself while I let you be yourself. (The role of you and me is already taken by two separate people.) It’s not my job to change what anyone believes. I don’t stand in judgment of people and their choices; that’s not my job either. (Thank God!) I won’t tell you I think something is “right” if I don’t believe it is. But I also won’t try to change you into believing the same as me. I can only ask for the same respect in reverse. From my end, we can still be friends and disagree.

That being said, I have always passionately cared about teenagers and young adults. There is one topic that can be very unpopular in this culture that especially affects them but many older people as well, especially as people are getting married later and later.

My beliefs definitely started with my Christian faith, my desire to please God, and what He outlined in the Bible as best and His design. But my beliefs don’t come from just there. It’s not just “religious” beliefs (I’m not a fan of that word anyway). What I’ve come to believe about a hot button issue is something I believe from the bottom of my heart is truly what’s best for our emotional, physical, and spiritual health. While this issue is a story you could have gleaned about me from my book, Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting, doing an interview highlighting the topic is a first for me.

So, what is this about? The hot button issue of sex before marriage.

To follow is a link to an interview I did for an online site called “Waiting Till Marriage”. If this topic interests you or if you know someone who may need some extra support in this area, feel free to check out the interview and share it:

CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK:

Waiting Till Marriage Interview

Interview Graphic WTM

To purchase Finally the Bride on Amazon, click the Paperback or Kindle link below:

Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting (Paperback):

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Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting (Kindle) :

Making Memories with Your Spouse

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“Don’t forget to celebrate each other and make
memories together. It’s easy to just live day-to-day rather than purposing to create memorable
events.”  (JG)

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Making Memories

I feel like Chris & I do this every single time we take a day trip or a short weekend getaway together. Follow our travel blogs for ideas of how to build memories this way.

Finally One Travel Blogs

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16 Ways to Pray for Your Future Husband

16 Ways to Pray If anyone knows what’s it’s like to wait to find love and marriage, it’s me. I waited 39 long years of life to walk down the aisle. Trusting God during the long wait was sometimes extremely difficult. Some days, all I could do was pray. I started to realize that “all I could do” was actually quite significant. I found out later how God-led my prayers actually were, once God revealed to me who I was going to marry and what he was going through in his life when I chose to pray certain things. My prayers mattered; my prayers paid off. When waiting to find a husband and get married, it can seem like you are helpless and “doing nothing.” One of the best things to do while waiting is to pray for your future husband. To follow are 16 prayer points that you can focus on during your waiting season, to pray for his preparation. You likely won’t know who that person is going to be when you are praying these prayers. But thankfully, God does.

  1. Pray for his walk with God, that he continues to grow spiritually and is prepped to be the spiritual head of a household, and that he makes God the top priority in his life.
  1. Pray for his ability to hear God’s voice, for his ear to be in tune to hear all of God’s instructions.
  1. Pray for his will to be bendable toward whatever God wants for his life.
  1. Pray for his emotional health—that any past wounds be dealt with and healed. Pray for restoration in all areas.
  1. Pray for his physical health.
  1. Pray that he break free of any unhealthy addictions, if needed.
  1. Pray for his career, his life’s work, that he be established in the field where God wants to use him and that he be wise with his resources.
  1. Pray for his ministry—that he be sensitive to God’s call on his life when it comes to ministering to and serving others. Also, pray for God to prepare both of you for the ways you will minister together.
  1. Pray for his preparation—that he yields to all that God’s potter’s hands would like to accomplish in him.
  1. Pray for God to send any trials necessary into his life that will allow the preparation process to be complete. I realize that may be a bit controversial. Knowing how much God has accomplished in my life through trials, I would expect nothing less of my husband’s journey toward me.
  1. Pray for God to prepare him to be a father, if the two of you will ultimately raise a family together.
  1. Pray for God to help him be responsible with his finances and prepare him to be a significant contributor and provider to the household.
  1. Pray for his identity as a man, his masculinity and self-esteem, that he grows into the man God wants him to be.
  1. Pray for him to not be distracted by any counterfeits—especially other women that God doesn’t intend to use for his growth.
  1. Pray for God to allow this man to see you the way God wants you to be seen, with God’s heart toward you.
  1. Pray for God to show you how to pray for your husband. Be open to whatever His Spirit may whisper to you, to cover your husband’s needs. If you feel God gives you something specific, write it down and date it. Save it for later.

I hope that praying these prayers will encourage you in your waiting, and help you feel that you are accomplishing much in the spiritual realm. I pray you will wait on God’s best. These prayer points are excerpted from Chapter 10 of my book, Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting.

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To purchase on Amazon, click the Paperback or Kindle link below:

Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting (Paperback):

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Finally the Bride: Finding Hope While Waiting (Kindle): 

Introducing: Dates With God, a new series by Cheryl McKay: (www.dateswithGod.com)

25 Dates With God: Volume 1 Adventures in Faith (KINDLE)

25 Dates With God: Volume 1 Adventures in Faith (PAPERBACK)

Volume 2:

Kindle Version:

Paperback Version:

PAPERBACK:
Song of Springhill – a love story: an inspirational romance based on historical events (on Paperback)

 

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Visit my other blogs written for singles, two of which I wrote while I was single and waiting:

Paging All Singles: There is Nothing Wrong with You

Father Knows Best, Right?

Morning Glory: A Blog About Waiting

One Move Can Change Your Whole Life

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Speak Life & Blessings Over Your Spouse

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“‘By the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things, just as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.’ Proverbs! Speak life and blessings over each other all the time, and watch as your life yields fruit because of those words!” (LS)

“Your tongue is either a pump or a nail for your spouse’s self-image. Choose for it to be a pump.” (EB)

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Speak Life and Blessings

Chris is often exhorting us to watch our words and reminding me of the power of words. This can be for good or for bad (speaking positively or negatively over your life and its circumstances). Why not use your words to speak life into your marriage, your work and ministry, and to speak life over your spouse? I’m not just talking about speaking encouragement to them, which is important, too. But purposed prayer over them (whether they are present with you or not), using Scripture, like Proverbs, to speak life and blessings.

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See Your Spouse as a Gift

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“Take care of the gift you have been given.”  (GS)

“Marriage has been a source of many blessings in my life. It fits in beautifully with one of my favorite quotes: ‘Man will fully discover himself only by making a sincere gift of himself.’ One of my fervent prayers is that I can always be a sincere gift to my wife and children. Not that I’m fully there yet, but like all of us, I consider myself a work in progress.” (DR)

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“Take care of the gift.” This was a gift I had asked for, for years, before God “finally” blessed me with a husband. He is a gift. I think sometimes, it can be easy for people to forget this was something they longed for. While we have only been married for almost 2 years, there isn’t a day that goes by I don’t thank God for Chris. He definitely is a wonderful gift. I hope I never make him feel like he isn’t or start to take him for granted. I also love the second piece of advice along the gift lines that encourages us to pray we are a gift to the other person. Chris often tells me I am a treasure, which means the world to me because of a time when I was told I was not a treasure by someone I loved. I pray Chris always sees me as a treasure and that I always give him reasons to think so.

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Wisdom Wednesdays Launch – Bonding with Your Spouse

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What is Wisdom Wednesdays?

At my bridal shower and our various wedding parties, men and women filled out advice cards filled with wisdom about how to have a happy and peaceful marriage. I put them all in the decorative box below, and we read them throughout our honeymoon.

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Then at our one-year anniversary mark, I took a Facebook survey, asking people to post comments with additional advice. I made Chris a special book of advice that we read during our anniversary trip where we renewed our vows (something we want to make a yearly tradition). We’ll use our blog on Wednesdays to share these nuggets of wisdom.  (We will use initials or first names only, to protect the privacy of those who filled out the cards.) We got some terrific advice that we have followed and can attest these little pieces of advice truly matter.

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We’ll kick off our Wisdom Wednesday post with a piece of advice we have followed every single night of our marriage since the beginning. Except those very few nights one of us was out of town in the past “almost” 2 years of marriage, we have never missed a single night; it’s been one of the best choices we’ve made in our marriage:

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“Go to bed together each night.

It keeps us on a schedule together and those final moments before you fall asleep where you can talk and cuddle are so precious. I hear so many people that go to bed at different times and have excuses like, ‘I’m a night person, they are not,’ but they end up missing out on a precious time of day, and then both of your schedules are off.  I think if you start from day one, it becomes a routine and you end up not wanting it any other way regardless of who is a night person or not.” (GV)

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The following photo is of Chris & Cheryl, renewing their vows on their one year anniversary trip in Harmony, CA.

The book with the vows also holds the marriage advice cards from our FB anniversary survey:

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