Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

March Wallpaper // Freebie

This month is always so exciting with hints of spring here and there!  After a long winter, we’re always anxious to get to spring.  To grab these wallpapers just right-click on either DESKTOP or IPHONE below, right-click on the image, save the image and set it as either your desktop wallpaper or your iPhone Home or Lock screen.  Enjoy!

DESKTOP // IPHONE

Disclaimer: These designs are Copyright © 2020 Forever Beloved/Amy Cutler and are for personal use only.  You must not re-distribute or use commercially.  If you share one on social media, please tag @foreverbeloved or link back to www.foreverbeloved.net

The Good Years of Marriage

So often we sit together just enjoying the stillness.  We refer to the place we’re in now as the good years.  The good years where peace lives daily.  It wasn’t always this way in our marriage.  We’ve come full circle, and the journey would not be complete without each part.

I remember that first time I saw him at a mutual friends house.  His t-shirt and bright eyes, the way he made me laugh with ease, his confidence, it sucked me in.  My attraction to this “bad boy” shocked me, this dark mysterious guy who ignored the world and rocked multiple tattoos.  I thought to myself that it would be hilarious if I were so immediately attracted to him because he was supposed to be my husband.  Actually, that was my second thought.  My first thought was that my Mama would never approve of this tattooed wild boy.

Three months later we were married, with vows breathed in the little country church I was born into.

The first year was everything I imagined it could be, but then as life took some tough shots at us, we quickly found out we weren’t equipped to withstand the storm.

The next several years were rough at best. I don’t even remember what caused all the arguments, but I remember the anger — my anger, his anger, bucket loads of tears, slammed doors, sleepless nights, souls aching and distance.

Our marriage was dying.

It was like a slow, silent kind of death.  One we were both uncomfortably aware of but unwilling to speak about.

Hopelessness consumed our days.  We wore hurt and brokenness daily like winter jackets.

Our marriage seemed comprised of arguments, an unwillingness to understand each other and selfish hearts.

We were living in the same house and unsure of what the future looked like.

On a warm summer day the silence was broken and we found ourselves at a crossroads between divorce and reconciliation.

We spent days being swallowed up by anger.  We spent days having tear soaked faces.  We spent days having hopelessness walk beside us.

But then GOD.

There was a night when I was at my breaking point.  I got in my car and started driving.  I ended up on a hill in the middle of the woods.  The sky was covered with stars and I could see for miles around.  I listened to hymns, sang along, cried my eyes out and talked to God for hours on end.  When I left the hill that night I had something new, HOPE!

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell my husband what the conversation between God and I held.

In that moment we were catapulted into trusting Him more than we ever had to in the past.

We handed our marriage to God, knowing we couldn’t revive it ourselves.  And with that, God breathed new life into our dying marriage.  He showed us both forgiveness in a way we had never known and restored our marriage, making it better than it ever had been in the past.

The new marriage we had was amazing.  It was filled with compromise, hope, selflessness and love.

Fifteen years later, our marriage is strong and solid, securely set now on a firm foundation. Perfect? No, is any marriage truly perfect?  Better than my twenty-year-old, naive self dreamed? Without a doubt!

Sometimes we sit and reminisce about the in-between years.  We talk about those gut-wrenching hard times.  We talk about how we couldn’t have made it without God.  And we talk about where we are now.  There is something so precious about struggling together and coming out on the other side hand-in-hand.

I want you to know God can see into the deepest depths of your heart.  He knows exactly what it will take to restore hope into your heart, into your life and into your marriage.  He meets us where we are and loves us just as we are, sinners.  He showers us with his amazing grace.  We have a God who knows how we feel, and really cares.  He knows our doubts and hopelessness.  He can help when we’re willing to bring those things to him.  God walks with us during our hopeless times and never leaves us.

Romans 8:28 says And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Our marriages aren’t exempt from this.  When we are in the middle of a trial in marriage, it’s hard to see how God could ever use it for good.  But He has promised to use them for good, and He is faithful to keep His word.  Give your marriage over to God and allow Him to heal the hopeless and the hardness.  He will bring beauty from the ashes.

Celebrating Your Mess

She told me her heart aches for me, like deep down inside of her, where the winds howl and moan.

It makes me take a step back and catch my breath.

Though I have admittingly been through trials, oddly enough to me, the one trudging through the valleys, they had never hit me as gut-wrenchingly hard as her words just had.

And I tell her that there are always hard things howling through the rhythms of life.  Hard things that build the framework for our prayers.

This messy life, the one I daily live and only partly share, is undoubtedly hard.

For someone looking in through the windows of our house, the hard would create a deep heart ache.

It’s been physically, emotionally and mentally difficult.  I’ve lost friendships.  I’ve lost my job.  It has changed my appearance and it has changed who I am as a person.  It has changed my marriage.  It has caused my children to have to really think hard to remember what life was like before Mama was sick and they’ve had to grow up faster than they should.

But for me, looking out through these windows into a world with much deeper hurt and pain than I experience, my mess feels like an enormous blessing.

If I spent my days focusing on the hard and the messy, as easy as that would be, what would I gain?  It would suck every ounce of joy from my being, replace it with despair.  It would settle me into a place where the howling, moaning winds would toss me around like a rag doll.  The numbered list of blessings would turn into an enormous list of every hardship I’ve ever faced.

The only way out was to look up.  I knew I had to.  I needed to see something beyond what my eyes told me.  So I look for Jesus, often.

I have found so much joy in celebrating my mess, there isn’t anything I would change.

I choose to celebrate my mess.  And celebrate the extravagant grace of Christ.  I keep my eyes on Jesus and His perfect sacrifice – because my life is a far cry from perfect.

In the darkest places, I found Him there with me.  Speaking to my heart.  Speaking life into the hurt places.  I’ve learned what it’s like to seek joy and find it.  I’ve learned that even in the hard times, He gives us enormous blessings.  I’ve learned joy doesn’t come and go with our circumstances.  But joy can be experienced despite our circumstances.  Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, second only to love, it flows from God, not circumstances.  We have a fundamental need for joy in our lives.  Life without joy is overwhelming, depressing and just plain sad.

The tired Mamas, the hurt wife, the discouraged Pastor, the heartbroken friend, the ashamed sinners, the chronically sick and so many more – we are the ones who get to celebrate the grace of a sovereign Redeemer!

Christ invites us to celebrate not because we’ve got it all together, Lord knows I’m a hot mess most days,but because He’s finished it all at the Cross!  Celebrating our mess doesn’t mean we’ve gotten it all right, but we’ve received His Grace.

God often uses the hard to refine us.  To transform us into the person we were created to be in the first place.  More like Him.

And with that we can dance in the wild rain of grace!