Recently I married my best friend December 18, 2016. This has been the most amazing  7 month whirlwind of love, and pure joy that I’ve ever experienced. Dylan and I have grown closer than ever. We are learning how to bring everything to God first and putting the Lord above ourselves and seeing each other the way God sees us-that is how we can learn to be selfless and therefore love each other even more through it all.

However, there are times I feel as a wife very uneducated and lost concerning my job as a wife! We had all of these resources and cool books while we were single on how to “prepare” to be a wife but once you get married you suddenly go from being single, to treading the uncertain and rough waters of being in a relationship to saying “I do” and immediately becoming married, you realize you weren’t prepared for everything.

You dreamed and planned and wished for certain things in your marriage-but did you forget to plan for the worst?

Sure you know how to cook and clean and shop on a budget, but how do you hold your husband’s hand and pray for the hundredth time for the Lord to provide money for the bills again?

What do you do when your gas tank is constantly on empty because you can only afford to spend $10 at a time at the gas pump? When you are alone at the house after he leaves again to go to work, another Monday, another week of only seeing him for 2 hours in the evening when he gets home? When you unexpectedly need to go in for surgery and end up more in debt than you could have imagined the first year of marriage could ever bring? (Not that that will happen to all of you but it happened to me!) 

There are so many things that life throws at a young couple and a lot of times we don’t have anyone to turn to but each other and to God.

I feel like young wives got left out of the online women’s encouragement club. Not a whole lot of resources are out there for newly married women. I know there are times in life when there isn’t going to be a resource for what you’re going through except God’s Holy Word. But I want to encourage all of the young and newly married wives out there.

If you aren’t married yet don’t close your browser. This article can still be beneficial to you! We all need to learn and grow. Please read this because you will need as much encouragement and wisdom as you can get before committing your whole life to someone forever.

We are a new generation of girls who have grown up in Christian homes, learned how to be homemakers, and met a godly man who will care for us but how are we as young women to now be good wives and do it well? We are going to be the ones to pave the way for others and for our daughters. Not that there’s a specific or perfect way to go about it but we can try. We can be strong and learn how to glorify God in the process of studying His Word and learning how to be the godly wife He wants us to be and bless our husbands at the same time.

When we are young and single and dreaming of married life we tend to build up so many expectations and dreams and plan how things will be when we get married.

There is nothing wrong with that until we let our expectations guide, direct and ultimately rule our lives.

Nothing goes as expected in marriage. You have to take each new day with grace.

For example, when I was little I grew up thinking I would be the perfect homemaker when I got married I would have nice music playing and dinner on the table every night when my husband got home. I would stay in really great shape for when I got pregnant, I would seek the Lord every single day and come up with perfect solutions when we ran into problems and I would be able to love my husband no matter what every single day.

To say the least, things didn’t go as planned. Those aren’t exaggerated expectations and dreams either. Those were real goals I had set and planned a year, months and even weeks before I got married. And those aren’t even any expectations I’ve made for myself as a mother!

I don’t have dinner on the table every night when Dylan gets home. Sometimes we don’t even eat till 8:30 or 9:00 and night! I’m not in great shape-according to my own standards. I weigh 15 pounds more than I’ve ever weighed before. I am having some serious health issues and had an unplanned surgery earlier this year. And I don’t spend every single day in the Word of God like I used to before I got married. And believe it or not, even though I am still amazed and in awe that Dylan loves me, there are times when I don’t want to love Dylan. I am mad or frustrated and I don’t feel like giving him a hug (it is very, very rare but it has happened).

We need to have a healthy fear of failure.

We need to know that it is O.K. that we don’t have it all together 24/7. That is a big one for me to accept. I like being busy and having my life together. I like being the perfect wife and I like meeting my own expectations. But it rarely happens the way I think it will. We need to be ok with that.

We need to know that God loves us and does not expect perfection from us-otherwise why would He have sent His only Son to die for our imperfections?

So if you’re barely making it by every week and only being able to go food shopping once every two weeks, and if you’re tired and sick and not able to make dinner on time, don’t worry. You don’t need to have everything together right now. Receive each new day with the grace God gives you.

His mercies are new each morning so don’t try to throw them back at Him because you won’t accept His mercy for your life. 

Continue learning about yourself and your marriage, keep striving to become a good wife but don’t strive in your own strength. Learn to lean on God and lean on your husband-that’s what he is there for.

Learn to receive grace for your life and your expectations and your situation. Everyone is different. Embrace that. Someone on Instagram might look like they have a perfect life and you may not…so what! They don’t have everything figured out. No one does! Only Jesus knows about your life and that’s all that matters. So focus on Him, trust Him, bind your wandering heart to His. Learn to follow Him no matter what.

Your calling as a wife is so unimaginably important. You now have someone to care for and to love, in addition to creating a beautiful home, sculpting a family, creating your own traditions and memories and being an influence to all around you.

Your grace and beauty and love for your husband and little home is such a light and magnification of our King. You are bringing Him glory when you entrust all of your dreams and expectations to Him and allowing Him to work through you even when you can’t see what is around the bend in front of you.

The other day when I was at work my two friends who are in college jokingly said I was more of an adult because I’m married even though we are the same age. I laughed about it and said it wasn’t true but they insisted. I went home and told Dylan later that night and he agreed with them. He said married women have more of a responsibility than when they are single. Cooking and cleaning and paying bills for two is a bigger job than you may think.

We have to see our roles as wives as important and beautiful. Don’t downplay yourself… see yourself how God sees you; essential to His kingdom and magnificent plan for family, the country, this generation, and ultimately, the world.

I will be praying for you dear sister. Now go say I love you to your husband and keep being the beautiful wifey you already are. God bless!