If you would have told me a handful of years ago that my husband and I would be teaching a marriage class at our church, I wouldn’t have believed you. 

And yet, here I am, reflecting on these past eight weeks and my heart is truly overflowing with gratitude. Because honestly, a part of me can’t even believe we actually did it. 

I have been terrified of public speaking for as long as I can remember. Like, shaking in my boots terrified. Add in the fact that our marriage has been anything but easy these last nine years, and the equation really didn’t add up for us to be doing this. 

But God had much better plans. And in true Heavenly Father fashion, he took all of the reasons why we couldn’t do it and used those as the exact things that made this class so great. 

Was it perfect? Absolutely not! We’ve already made comments about things that we wish we would have done differently. 

But what this experience taught me more than anything else is this: God doesn’t call us to be perfect. He simply calls us to be obedient. 

And I am just so dang proud of us for pushing all the excuses aside and saying yes, no matter how scared or unqualified we may have felt. 

Because I’m learning more and more that one of God’s favorite things to do is take messy, broken stories like ours and turn them into masterpieces.