Grow: How Living as Family Sometimes Looks Like a Junior High Dance

Earlier this week I have the opportunity to write a guest post on the blog of a good friend of our family, JR. Forasteros. JR. is a teaching pastor at Beavercreek Church of the Nazarene and is married to the lovely Amanda Forasteros. This couple has been formational in Jake and I's spiritual development as we have talked, challenged, prayed, and dreamed together over the years.

Manda, me, JR. and Jake

Manda and I on the ferris wheel

JR. is just finishing up a month long series on everything related to Marriage and Sex called Happily Ever After. "What happens on the other side of the Fairy Tale? When Romance is gone and Love gets tough, how do we survive and thrive in what comes After 'happily ever after'?" On Tuesday, I was invited to post about how to survive and thrive when you are married with children. Enjoy!


When Jake and I first got married, there was no such thing as our own space. We didn’t want our own space; instead, we were one of those nauseating couples who simply wanted to be together every single minute.

But as we dreamed about a future family, I started to imagine daily “me” times, weekly date nights, weekend  “family times” and regular one-on-one times with each of my children. All planned out at the beginning of the week, posted on our perfectly accurate family calendar (wahahaha).

What we learned as we started having kids, however, is that “life” often threatens to get in the way of the spaces we so desire to create for ourselves and for each other.

School and work continually ask for more of our time. New projects around the house are always popping up. We rarely have a day when we go to bed feeling like there is simply “nothing left to do.” With the pressures of all these other urgent matters, it can be difficult to make each other and our kids a priority.

Related to this struggle, the late Stephen Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, said,

The place to start is not with the assumption that work is non-negotiable; it’s with the assumption that family is non-negotiable. That one shift of mind-set opens the door to all kinds of creative possibilities. (p. 118)

We have adopted this principle as our starting place, and it has been amazing how we have been able to live in the tension of the multiple demands....

Read the rest here.