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Eric and I during a missions trip to moldova while we were engaged

At the beginning of our marriage, both my husband and I were working in youth ministry for a local church - this is where we met before we even started dating, and being able to do ministry together has been the foundation of our relationship and our life together. So when I lost my job exactly a year ago, I didn’t just lose a job - I lost most of my identity. I lost an opportunity to be engaged in my own personal calling for ministry as well as my opportunity to continue to do ministry with my husband. We always knew that our years in that specific ministry together would not be forever, but to have it ripped from us so suddenly was confusing and painful and left us both with broken hearts. While the Lord has been good and gracious in guiding and directing my path and my opportunity to start a business and work for myself and be able to stay home with our baby boy and provide financially for our family, we are still filled with sorrow most days, if we are being honest.

So when a month or so ago, my husband was approached by some former youth ministry students who were recently engaged and asked if he would be willing to be their marrying pastor and if we would be interested in doing their premarital counseling, I was both super excited and hesitant at the same time. Eric and I have only been married for just under 5 years - have we been married long enough to provide any value and wisdom to younger couples getting ready? Did we need any training and could that happen in time to be able to meet with them multiple times before their wedding? Is life just too overwhelming in the midst of our ongoing grief and sorrow, plus the addition of a rambunctious little toddler and running my business?

Premarital Mentoring - A New Chapter

I clearly had a lot of questions that I needed my husband to answer before we could say yes. But Eric was great at walking through each of those questions and giving me enough information to allow us to make what felt like an easy decision - yes! we absolutely want to walk this journey with another young couple and provide guidance for them as they begin this new chapter of life together - what an honor! Eric and I are not stepping into this journey unprepared - in some ways, it’s a blessing that we walked this road not too long ago and still remember those days and weeks and months of anticipation and working through our own premarital counseling process. Eric and I were able to attend a brief training with our local church to understand how to walk through the Prepare/Enrich assessment and materials that we will use during this Premarital Mentoring process. We used those materials when we got married and found such incredible value in it and the types of conversations that it led us to have as we started our life together.

And as I was processing this new chapter for me and my husband as well, I realized that I want to be able to share our own journey as we reflect back on the start of our marriage and as we evaluate the current state of our marriage after nearly 5 years. I think there are so many areas that young couples (ourselves included) step into marriage with certain expectations of what life will be like that can then be really difficult to navigate years down the road if you have not set a foundation for how to have those conversations. I’m super excited to reflect back on those expectations that both Eric and I had and see how they have developed over these past five years - both knowingly and unknowingly.

expectations of marriage - a blog series | ajenericadventure.com

Expectations of Marriage - A Series

I already have a few topics floating around in my head for this Expectations of Marriage series:

doing devotions as a couple
tips/tools for budgeting and setting a good financial foundation
understanding your own personality and how you interact as a couple (hello, enneagram and DISC profiles!)
expectations of individual roles in your relationship and looking ahead to building a family
the importance of clear communication (even when it’s hard or awkward)
and more!

While I already have a few starter ideas for blog posts in this series, I would also love to know what you would love to read!

What Expectations of Marriage would you love to see us address in this series?

starting our journey into premarital mentoring - a new chapter in ministry as husband and wife

Hopefully, this series will bring great value for those who are single, dating, or engaged - but also for anyone who is already married, because we’re never done learning and growing and developing within our relationships! I’m looking forward to how this premarital mentoring opportunity will grow and challenge our own relationship and see how it develops within this blog series as well. And of course, I’m just really excited to step into a new chapter of doing ministry alongside of my husband! 🥰