When we first got married it seemed like 5 years was so far away. But here we are, after 5 years of marriage we have been through so much. Last year I wrote a few thoughts about marriage on our 4th anniversary. In it, I wrote about the major influences in our marriage: God, our family, friends, and church family. I then talked about how precious my wife is to me, and the type of godly husband I want to be for her.
I won’t repeat all of that stuff again (if you want to read it, follow the link above – it would actually mean a lot if you did read it and comment), because nothing has really changed (except for 1 thing which I’ll get to later). We are still devoted to serving our Lord Jesus Christ and living for God’s glory, we have an amazing family (on both sides), we have wonderful, supportive friends, and our love for each other has grown!
What I decided to do this year is to update you on a couple of the major changes that have taken place over the last year.
New Church
In October we decided that it was time to look for a new church. Our main criteria was a strong emphasis on the sufficiency and authority of scripture, leadership and members that stress holy living, meaningful fellowship, evangelistic, and close to our [desired] home.
We prayed for all of these things, but since it’s so hard to find even two of these things in the same church, we were willing to settle. However, early on in our search, we seemed to come across a church that had all of these things. We first visited in November, and decided to commit to it in December – it helped that they were having a new member class starting in January!
We have loved every minute of being there. There is really too much to say about the preaching, commitment to holy living, stimulating fellowship (including home groups), loving spirit, and evangelistic zeal of this congregation and the leadership, for this article. Just know that this has been a major change for us, and we love it!
New Friends
Much of our new friendships have come out of our new church home. We have developed relationships with a lot of godly couples – something that was rare for us in the past – and we have met plenty of people who have become part of our lives. Normally, our lives are just too busy to spend time with other people on a regular basis.
To be honest, we are even more busy now (see below), but we have committed to building relationships. It’s good to know that we have people praying for us and willing to help us out when we need it.
Also, a lot of these “new friends” have children, so we get to have even more kids in our lives!!!
New Home
We have finally completed our move! I have written in the past about our move stopping us from working out, causing us to eat out more, and even helping us to save money on car insurance.
Well, the last piece of furniture is finally in. We still have to change our address with a number of places, unpack, set up all the rooms, and get back on a workout schedule.
The last few months have been so hectic, between looking for a new place (we are picky and frugal, so it was hard), traveling to a funeral in North Carolina, packing, and getting rid of lots of trash!
We are both very excited to be in our new place – having central air and a washer/dryer in the apartment helps – and once we get settled, we plan to have people over often!
New Job?
No, I didn’t leave my university job, but my part time job has really taken off. As some of you know, I own KNS Financial LLC, which provides tax preparation and financial consulting services. I also write the “Faithful With A Few” blog on that site, as well as this one here. On top of that, I am a staff writer for 3 other sites. Before the move, I was putting between 40 and 50 hours a week into this “part time” business.
Maintaining my online presense has been the most time-consuming part of this work and it has become a full time job! Once we get settled, we plan to make major changes, and my wife will be helping me full time. Hopefully, that will mean that we get to spend more time working side-by-side, and our relationship will grow even stronger.
It should also allow us to become better at both monetizing the online side, and building curriculum and other materials for the offline side. By doing this, we will be able to pay off debt faster, and accomplish my goal of working full time from home!
New Commitment
photo by Zoha N
I have devoted a lot of time to working over this past year. By doing that, I have neglected to be the spiritual leader in my home that God has called me to be. Starting today, I want to commit to praying and reading scripture with my wife daily, talking about issues that are on our hearts, and having more fun!
Hopefully, I will be 100lbs lighter (I’m already part-way there), have a lot less debt, and be closer to God and my wife by this time next year (if God keeps us here that long)!
Oh, don’t forget to read my post from last year (the first link in this article)!
main photo by Digital Art
© 2011, fatguyskinnywallet.com. All rights reserved.
Happy Anniversary. May God bless you with 50 more!
Happy Anniversary! It sounds like you’ve had a busy year. 🙂
Happy Anniversary! My 43rdi s tomorrow.
43 years is an amazing feat! Congratulations!!!
Happy Anniversary! Hope you didn’t forget to buy some flowers. 😉
I actually went a little overboard. I got her an edible arrangement and a gift certificate to a spa!
43rd! Now that’s an accomplishment!
That’s a nice look back on the various areas of your life over the year 🙂
Happy Anniversary to you and your wife! May you have many many more happy years ahead!
Happy anniversary, you are both very lucky to have eachother
Khaleef, you and your wife seem to be just as hard working with your personal life and you are with everything else so good things will always happen for you.
It’s awesome your wife will be joining you but one thing I would say is try and work seperate….. I know that sounds odd but space is just as important as closeness. I’m in a coffee shop right now and my partner of 4 years is at a friends house. We are both working (she is writing her thesis and I am working online) and could share space but we try hard to spend a portion of every day apart and this strengthens our relationship no end…… After days together small things can irk us and misunderstandings occur, this is of course just part of any relationship. You guys seem to have life sussed out though and I am sure you will find a very successful groove and keep on pushing that debt out of your life.
Looking forward to seeing your life grow.
Happy Anniversary. Cheers to many more great years full of love and support.
Happy Anniversary! And heres to many more years full of love and joy!!
Happy Anniversary and congrats on all the positive changes in your lives. I can’t wait to meet the two of you next month. Is it okay that I’ll give you both hugs?
Sure! We both are into hugs! 😉
Congrats, I wish you many more. My marriage has been the driving force of my life success :). You are doing amazing things both on and offline. Keep up the amazing work!
Happy anniversary!! Sounds like a great year. Our 7 year anniversary is coming up in two months, you have inspiried a post about it.
Happy Anniversary! It sounds like it has been an extremely busy year. I heartily agree with your goal of having more fun :). After a year in the work world, that is something I could use too, and it is harder to find than I thought it would be.
Wow, what a year! Congrats and good luck moving forward! I cannot wait to meet you two at FINCON!
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and well-wishes! The support of our family and friends has made a huge difference in our marriage. We are looking forward to meeting many of you at FINCON in a month!
I have dreams of working from home. Currently have dreams of finding a different career path altogether. I currently work in the IT field. But I’d love to get some education on nutrition/wellness and would love to help others who are morbidly obese get healthy. I know I’m still on my own journey to be healthy and fit. I somehow need to find a way to afford the schooling. I’ve been praying about it. Feel free to pray for me as well. 🙂 Love your work Khaleef.
I will definitely pray for you. I think it would be great for you to try to help people with their health. You have had great progress and I am sure you have done a lot of research into nutrition and fitness in order to get there.