Carlton and Jenny

Jenny and I have been attached at the hip since early January when she moved to Murray. During the last 3.5 months we have been virtually inseparable. However, this past week was very different. Jenny’s job at Murray State takes off for Spring Break when the students do. In light of this Jenny traveled home on Wednesday to stay at home for a few days to wrap up some wedding details.

To be honest, neither one of us thought that it would be very hard to be away for a short period of time. However, we found out that it was hard to function without one another. I think what we experienced for the first time is that when God binds two hearts together for marriage that they really do become one person. Our wedding is not until June but the Lord has already knit us together closely and the result of that is oneness.

Bro. Ricky Cunningham always talks about marriage in this sense. He says that men and women are created differently and the goal of marriage is not sameness but oneness. Oneness is when we come together and our differences make us closer not farther apart. I have been praying that God would do this in our relationship and cause our differences to bind us closer together.

A prime example of this is that I am SUPER analytical and Jenny is not. When we both come home from a worship service I may ask, “What did you think about the service tonight.” Jenny will probably respond with, “It was good.” To me this is not a good nor sufficient answer. My mind is so analytical that I want to know WHY the service was good. I want her to tell me about the music, worship, prayer time, sermon, lights, atmosphere, temperature, the little old lady sitting in front of her, and what she learned. However, I have realized that Jenny takes things in as a whole. Her mind is not analytical and she doesn’t look at everything in detail. This is not wrong it’s just different than me. So to her the service was simply, “good.” To be honest, this really frustrated me at first. However, I believe that her ability to look at the whole picture is a gift to me from God and will be greatly needed in the pastorate.

The more I think about her generalness and how it affects me I can rejoice because I can see its great benefits. The problem with being super analytical is that you will ALWAYS find something wrong no matter what you are analyzing, especially if it’s church. Many times I can’t enjoy what’s going on around me simply because I can see flaws in even the most minuscule details. Being one with Jenny causes me to take my eyes off of the details when they need to be, look at the whole picture and notice it’s beauty instead of the bad stroke in the bottom left hand corner that no one else even notices.

I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Lord for Jenny and how he has made her to balance me. It is my prayer that we will continue in oneness and God will grant us grace. I also pray that he won’t keep her away so long next time!

For His Glory,

Carlton