I know you think I worry too much. You look out into this adult world you are entering and see possibility and adventure. But I look out into the same world and see a myriad of landmines that seek to destroy my children. You dream about independence; I have nightmares about all the things I haven’t taught you yet. Trusting God with your independence is the hardest part of parenting so far.
I try not to tell you about all my worries. But one fear that I want you to know about? I worry you will be afraid to say these three words:
I need help.
Pride might keep you from saying these words. After all, you’ve worked hard for your independence. You might feel like you’ve had to wrestle it away from us at times. You probably want to prove to the world, to me and Dad, and to yourself that you can think for yourself and make adult decisions. Asking for help could make you feel weak or like you’ve failed.
Shame might keep you from saying these words. You might realize that you’ve blown it and now you’re in over your head. You might worry that you’ve disappointed us, that we taught you to do the opposite thing and now we’ll say “I told you so.”
I need to own that. I know there have been times when I’ve been too strict or too overbearing or too micro-managing. I know I haven’t always trusted you when I should have. So I get that you might be reluctant to come to me for help, and that’s partly my fault.
But, my beloved children, please hear me when I say that one thing I’ve learned the hard way is that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s actually a sign of strength. I’m not talking about the whiny cry from a kid who doesn’t want to do his chores. I mean the kind that comes with maturity – recognizing your God-designed limits and God-intended interdependence. It’s what true wisdom looks like, and it’s a mark of humility.
It’s okay to admit that you don’t know everything. It takes incredible strength of character to take responsibility for your mistakes. So when your first instinct is to shift blame, shove your sin under the rug, or blunder blindly through a decision, tell yourself that you do have another choice: You can ask for help.
Your dad and I will always be ready to help. But you’ve also got a whole community of people around you who will do the same: grandparents, youth pastors, teachers, coaches – so many people who love you! Never allow yourself to believe that you are alone in this world.
And perhaps the main reason this is so important to me is because you will never grow in your relationship with God until you are willing to go to him for help. In fact, I would argue that you won’t really understand what salvation means until you find yourself on your face, desperate for help from God. Pride and shame will try to keep you away from him too. But if you want to find life that is truly life? That starts by asking for help.
I’ve never felt entirely confident in giving marriage advice.
Gil and I do not have a traditional story. We were good friends for two years, dated for a month, were engaged for five months, and were married on October 7, 2000. (I wrote that story here: Exceedingly, Abundantly: The First Decade.)
We moved to Tanzania nine months after we got married, where I had a mental breakdown ten days after we arrived, worked myself into exhaustion with eleven-hour workdays and additional ministry at night, and Gil wasn’t given any of the mentoring he asked for and often felt like a failure. Those first two years, Gil watched dozens of Friday night movies while I fell asleep on the couch next to him during the first fifteen minutes. Fun times.
We moved back to the States two years later for Gil to enter seminary; I was anxious, he was depressed, and we were both a mess a lot of the time. Meanwhile, the harsh reality of infertility entered the picture, and then we had another international move.
I think that both of us spent a good portion of the first several years of our marriage feeling either frustrated or hurt with each other, and it’s difficult to know how much of that was us and how much was our circumstances. But that’s life, right? Disney tells us that marriage begins the happily ever after, but, well, that’s just dumb.
But here we are, twenty-five years later. Still married, and honestly, happier now than we ever were in the early years.
I’ll never be an expert on marriage—I can only be an expert on my marriage. The lessons I’m sharing today might be no-brainers for you, or you might feel a heap of unnecessary condemnation because you can’t see these things applying in your marriage, which looks (or looked) very different from mine. If that’s the case, then ignore what you need to ignore.
I wrote these 25 lessons from my perspective, not Gil’s, but please don’t get the impression that I believe marriage is a one-sided deal. A person can glorify God by loving and serving an unreciprocating spouse, but that marriage will never be happy unless both are loving and serving.
Yet, at the same time, I think that my marriage went from being often frustrating to almost always happy when I stopped fixating on reciprocation. How much did God change me and how much did God change Gil in that season? That is the mystery of two people becoming one.
Last week we celebrated 25 years for a few days in San Diego, and I praised God for this guy who took me to Africa, is the best dad to our kids, and who makes me laugh, feel safe, and be a better version of myself. He has enthusiastically cheered me on through all the roles God has brought me into, even if it’s meant sacrifices for him.
When we got married, we had “Ephesians 3:20-21” inscribed in our wedding rings, which says:
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Well, I should clarify: my ring has that reference inscribed in it. Gil lost his wedding ring several years ago and now wears a substitute we bought for one euro from a street vendor in Istanbul. This makes me laugh every time I think about it and I love that fake wedding ring even more because of it. It kind of sums up the messiness of marriage, doesn’t it? You might read this list and think, Wow, she sure has it good! at some parts and Whoa, her marriage was a trainwreck at other parts.Yes and yes.
Without further delay, here are my 25 lessons from 25 years of marriage. When I say lessons, I mean I personally learned them. As in, I didn’t do them well at the beginning. Sometimes I was flat out terrible at them. You’ll have to ask Gil how often I practice what I preach today.
My parents were right: Choosing a husband who shares your values about God, money, and parenting means way less conflict. And an extra tip for those not yet married? Talk about adoption from the beginning too. I am continually thankful that Gil and I have always been on the same page about all of these things.
Serve in ministry together. I can’t think of anything else that has intertwined our hearts more than this. I wrote about it here: A Marriage Forged on the Mission Field
Expectations hurt a marriage. Resentment from unmet expectations makes you unnecessarily miserable.*
Don’t expect your husband or your marriage to be the source of all of your happiness. In our early years, my mood rose and fell on how well our marriage was going. This is a sure-fire way to be upset a lot of the time and anxious for the rest of it.
Don’t expect him to read your mind about what makes you happy.
Focus more time and energy on finding ways to serve him and make him happy instead of pouting over the times he didn’t read your mind.
Don’t interpret his motives through your incorrect and unrealistic expectations. (No, he probably didn’t forget on purpose nor is it a reflection of his love for you.)
Don’t expect him to take the place of a healthy community. A marriage cannot hold the weight of a need for close friends.
Don’t expect him to read your mind about what neat and clean looks like. This is simply not fair. If the windows or baseboards are that important to you, clean them yourself.
Criticizing, micromanaging, or nagging (which are also forms of criticism) are a great way to discourage him from helping.
Take the StrengthsFinder assessment. We did this a few years into our marriage and it was a gamechanger for me. Suddenly I understood and appreciated Gil in a completely new light.
Focus on your husband’s strengths. Many weaknesses can be reframed as strengths. Choose to reframe.
Regularly compliment him on his strengths. Do this in front of other people.
Shocker: You are way more selfish and self-centered than you thought possible. When this becomes apparent, respond in humility, not defensiveness.
Joyfulness is contagious. So is grumpiness and resentment.
“I was wrong” and “thank you” are the mortar for the bricks of marriage.
Be kind. Never say or do anything that has the sole purpose of hurting the other person.
Make him laugh. Be ridiculous. Laugh at his jokes.
Share everything: bank accounts, phone passwords. Well, except sheets. We tried to share for ten years before we realized that we could sleep better and still be happily married with our own sheets.
You don’t have to share all interests or hobbies, but learning together (reading, watching, listening) about topics that interest you both is a fantastic way to build connection.
Encouraging him to pursue his hobbies is a great way to love him.
Jesus said that dying to yourself (and your desires) is how to find abundant life. Marriage is one of the best ways to discover this.
The more expectations, grievances, offenses, grudges, hurts, etc, you can let go of, the better. Pick your battles and make them few. Let the rest go.**
Make grace your goal. Grace for him, grace for yourself, and grace even when he doesn’t give you grace. Grace transforms.
Prayer is always a better strategy than manipulation, nagging, or worrying.
Grace and prayer are a great way to end this list. I would love to hear your lessons too!
*Just to be clear, expectations of physical and psychological safety should go without saying. **Anything in the category of abuse or major sin issues doesn’t count. Don’t let those go.
In fourth grade, I listed my life’s ambitions in a book titled My Cabbage Patch Kid and Me. I also listed out my Cabbage Patch Kid’s ambitions, which included “sun-bather” and “firefighter.” Don’t ask me how I made those predictions about my yellow-haired doll, but my own list turned out to be pretty accurate:
I had Mother and Teacher covered in my 30s. Sadly, as much as I liked to draw as a child, I will never be any kind of artist. My Cabbage Patch Kid never became a firefighter either, so we don’t always get what we want.
However, as of today, August 29, 2025, at the age of 48, my childhood dream of becoming a “book writer” is actually happening. I signed a book contract with Gospel-Centered Discipleship, which means I am officially writing a real book that will actually be published.
I have devoted my life to Christian missions. Am I guilty of cultural assault?
My job is to hire, onboard, coach, and train new missionaries. Sometimes it’s a bit disconcerting to work in a profession that so many people hate.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across an article from The Guardian: “Missionaries using secret audio devices to evangelise Brazil’s isolated peoples.”
The headline is clickbait for an article that is mostly speculative. Considering that a companion article claims that the same tribe’s longhouses “glow with screens” and are asking for Starlink, I’m not sure they’re as isolated as we imagine.
But it was the comments that got my attention.
Over a thousand negative comments with over 700 shares.
Some are valid accusations. History has shown us plenty of ignorant, arrogant, or destructive missionaries. I met some. Sometimes I was one. In fact, the whole reason I am passionate about my job of preparing and equipping missionaries is because I want to prevent them from making these mistakes. From making mistakes that I made. Anyone who has sat through one of my trainings knows that the thing I say over and over again is to enter another culture with humility.
But I also understand that many people believe that a missionary should never go in the first place. Or that if he does, his work should only be humanitarian. He should never dare to try to persuade someone to change their beliefs.
Grace came home to us from an orphanage when she was ten months old, and is now nineteen. She agreed to have this discussion about adoption and has read what I am posting. I’m so grateful for her vulnerability in sharing these things publicly!
The day she came home
As I look back on how Grace processed adoption, I think she instinctively knew something was wrong in her life even when she was a toddler.
At eighteen months old, she became obsessed with a book where Dora the Explorer helps a baby bird find his mommy. She wanted to read it again and again, becoming agitated or even crying each time the bird was lost and rejoicing when the mama bird was found.
At first, I thought it was cute and nothing more, but then it became a pattern in Grace’s life. I discovered that many toddler books have the theme of a child losing his mother, and Grace became increasingly upset by these books. As she got older, she wanted nothing to do with them. This was before she was old enough to understand adoption at all.
Me: Do you remember any of this?
Grace: As a little kid, I remember reading the monkey book [a board book called Hug]. I remember crying every single time. Bobo [the monkey] lost his mama, and I did too.
Me: You eventually hated that book and would run away if I brought it out to read to your siblings. But also, you named your stuffed monkey Bobo. What are your earliest memories of understanding adoption?
Grace: I knew the word because we talked about it all the time. You never hid from us that we were adopted (not that you could!).
I think I first began to understand on the first day of kindergarten, because people came in with their parents, and all their parents looked like them, and my parents didn’t look like me. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t in a normal situation, that this didn’t happen to everybody.
