I’ve mentored a lot of girls through seasons of engagement, but meandering through it myself has affected me with a new lens and set of perspectives.

1. The ring meant more than I thought it would (for both my fiancé, Micah, and me).

2. Prioritizing “marriage” over “wedding” has kept our feet on the ground most weeks. The weekend we got engaged, in fact, knowing our first impulses would jump to wedding plans, we intentionally set it aside to consider God’s views of “marriage,” “union” and “life together,” versus the glam of one day.

3. We’ve savored having friends give gifts in the form of their “giftings.” From photographer and flowers, to favors, cake and design, we’re thrilled to have our friends and families handprints all over this beginning celebration of our marriage…and it's cost effective!

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"This album grew into something I couldn't foresee and didn't intend," Andrew Peterson says of his new music project. "Counting Stars has songs that are so personal I'm a little embarrassed to incude them." A beautiful example is "Dancing in the Minefields," a haunting yet hopeful song about love and marriage.

Andrew Peterson - Dancing in the Minefields from Centricity Music on Vimeo.

I have lately heard several stories that have just made me hurt.  One of them was a story of a married couple getting a divorce.  The story was one of a long time married couple with several children.  The husband filed for divorce and ran off with his new lover.  Not long ago, I heard another such story. 

Not that divorce is uncommon, but when I hear of dear friends getting separated or divorced, it just hurts.  Sometime perhaps I will explore the theological and Biblical dimensions of divorce, but for now, I would just like to say that in my mind, the biggest reason that the Bible says that God hates divorce is that it hurts people.  I have not heard of a divorce yet that doesn't leave people battered and torn.  Whether we feel that there is Biblical precedence or not for divorce, that to me is not the issue at hand.

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[This originally appeared on the Mars Hill Church blog]

I was originally assigned the task of looking at advice on how to be a man from a men’s magazine. Problem is, there wasn't any.

Esquire's June/July 2010 issue was called How to Be a Man. Appropriate. With a title that declarative and a tagline of “Man at His Best,” I was anxious to comb through it to see what they had to say about manhood. With a base circulation of 700,000 and competition like GQ, Maxim, and Details, Esquire is arguably one of the largest and most influential men’s magazines in the world. They've got to know what they're talking about, right? Esquire’s website describes their audience as "the affluent and successful man." Should be exactly what I'm shooting for here.

With Irony As Our Guide

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My church has a custom, on the second Sunday of every month, of calling everyone who has a birthday or anniversary during that month to come to the altar rail and receive a blessing. Birthdays go on one side of the altar, anniversaries on the other. Since my birthday falls in August, this past Sunday I went up and knelt with the other August birthday-ers – and, as it happened, on my left was a young girl of sixteen, and on my right, a mature woman in her sixties, both of whom I consider friends.

After we received our blessing, I went back to my pew, and watched as the priest blessed the anniversary couples. As usual, he asked how many years of marriage each couple was celebrating, and repeated the number for the congregation to hear: this month we had celebrations of 20, 55, and 65 years. (We applauded.

…”It all belongs to you! I know, my God, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there” (1 Chronicles 29:16b-17).

Last night, I watched Frank on The Bachelorette break Ali’s heart. Whether it was staged, scripted or the truth–what he did to her sucks. Total douche.

Which got me to think. I am Frank. Insecure. Selfish. Emotional. Easily persuaded. Full of regret. Feelings.

I wish I had the guts to break up with my last job sooner than I did. Let’s be honest. I was scared to death of losing the one job that meant the world to me. The opportunities it afforded me were priceless.

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I'm sure you've seen it.  It's been all over the news.  A new study claims "children of lesbian couples do well."  You can read the study for yourself.  I hadn't read the study but when I first heard about it, I was skeptical.  Why?  Because families are not socially constructed but divinely designed.  And when human beings function outside of God's design they don't do well, rather they break down.  Hurt, pain, and dysfunction follow. 

Today at the Acton University, I was able to sit in on Dr. Jennifer Roback-Morse's lecture, "Beyond Contracts:  Marriage and Sustainable Markets."  She addressed the study and has outlined "8 reasons why the study does not prove anything about the functioning of the children of lesbians": 

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It was different this time. There was no fanfare; no white dress; no aisle. There was a tiny bit of planning and we were on a beach, but one that was about as far away as possible from the first time without leaving the country.

I wore sweatpants. My hair was pulled back after a day spent in the sun. We ate fried clams and caprese salad on a bench. Our entertainment was watching one of the most extraordinary sunsets I have ever seen.

When the sun finally sank for a rest behind the glorious watercolor it left behind, people began to turn their backs and head home. We stayed.

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I love my family.  I have two loving, supportive parents who have been married for over 40 years.  I have two older siblings, two older sibling-in-laws, a beautiful niece, and four rambunctious nephews (five, when you include my step-nephew).  We’re blessed enough to live within 20 minutes of each other - and even though we don’t see each other nearly as much as we should (given our proximity!), our family gatherings are fun, rowdy, stressful, and entertaining.  (This is where I should mention that my niece is 9, two of my nephews are 8, and the other two are 5ish.  That’s a LOT of kid energy!).

Growing up, our family dynamic was slightly different than most - I’m the youngest kid by nearly 9 years. My experience of growing up was a hybrid of being the “baby” in the family, while also feeling like the only child - since my older siblings were grown up and in college by the time I was entering 4th grade.  The glue holding us together though, were my folks.  Married young, my parents had a couple decades of marriage under the belt when I came on to the scene.  Though they certainly had their ups and downs, they stuck things out (and still do!) and I’ve witnessed their marriage grow and flourish because of it.

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Author, speaker, mentor Patrick Dodson talk about his new book 'Stuff My Dad Never Told Me About Relationships.'

Patrick Dodson | learning how to love... from ConversantLife on