Team Tuohy

On Our Way!

In the drive thru line getting our Activity Books, Coupons and More! Thanks Marriage Ministry Team!

We're Ready!

Yum!

Team Tuohy <3

I am a spoiled Wifey!

No, that is not a loaf of bread... it's butter.

Date Night- Serious Fun!

Dessert= Cranium Time!

Favorite Gift- A Watch?

Dream vacation if money was no object? Greece, Fiji, Australia & Italy!

This is why we love being married to each other! So much fun!

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I was inspired by a blog I recently read about being "that wife" that resembles a housewife in today's world. It strikes a cord that I so often battle myself. Asking myself if am I "old-fashioned"? Wondering how I can stand firm and be confident in cleaning the house, doing the dishes, making the meals, folding laundry and more in a society that tends to look down upon that. 

Thankfully I am encouraged daily by the women in my life who consistently point not only me back to Christ, but my marriage. I am truly blessed to have this- another beauty of living in community! However, on those days I just need simple truth I try to remember the following:

1. My approval/acceptance does not come from this world, but from Christ. I was just reminded of this in a sermon on Sunday- we are called to "suffer" for Christ. We are suppose to look funny and do things differently for this world is not our home -John 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." If I belong to this world- I do not belong to Christ, I would rather be persecuted and look funny than to give up my salvation. At the end of the day the world has dramatically changed, however we are still held to the standard of the Word.

2. God intrusts me to use this as an opportunity to honor and glorify Him. A large part of the time these "roles" and equal submission (Ephesians 5:22-33) are why our marriages succeed. Your marriage is your number one ministry for others to see. USE IT! They will see differences in your marriage - as said before here- and when you are asked "why" it is an opportunity to lead them to Him. 

3. It is ultimately not for our husband but for Christ. By doing those things you are submitting to Christ and glorifying Him through it. This is done by taking such wisdom from proverbs and choosing to follow God's lead for what a wife's role looks like. Mike is always willing to help out when I need it or on the days I decide to be "self- righteous" but I find when I change my focus to serving God not only am I immediately humbled but I enjoy doing it even more.

4. Proverbs 31:10-33 * Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character*

  ^"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her  and lacks nothing of value.She brings him good, not harm,  all the days of her life. She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously;her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed;  she is clothed in fine linen and purple. Her husband is respected at the city gate,  where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them,  and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.  She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed;  her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women do noble things,  but you surpass them all.”  Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;  but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate. "

I love this! Look at all the hard work this women does, you could totally focus on that. Instead focus on all she gets from that work- she is worth more than rubies, her husband has FULL confidence in her, she has no fear about the future but laughs and is clothed with strength and dignity. She speaks wisdom that brings glory to Christ and respect to her family, her children call her blessed and her husband praises her with words so encouraging and appreciative. I want to be this wife, truly. To have my family respected, my husband love me and my children call me blessed- there is simply no greater honor. All else will fade away but this woman will be sustained by Christ for she submits, respects and follows the Lord regardless of worldly views- absolutely goodness right there.

4. It pushes me to be more like Christ, any Christian's ultimate goal. More of Him, less of me. The great news is the Lord has gone before us and He cared enough to give us a path to be more and more like Him."These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. As I heard in an example this Sunday -  At the end of it all our goal is to chip away everything that is not of Christ- Jesus he served and submitted faithfully. Take joy that He is changing you to be more like him- for it is hard now in this world, but blessed will we be when we stand before Him.

Ultimately, I believe in the role of a wife. I truly love serving my husband in these ways because I dearly love him. Every marriage will look different, every husband and wife will have different expectations. None of that is wrong. However, for all the wives out there, myself included, who enjoy being "that wife" or strive to be "that wife" - this is just a sweet reminder for why we do it. I know it encouraged me today!

In His grace,

One of the wonderful ladies in my community group, Kristin, found this devotional called Jesus Calling and after a few she sent out for all of us to read I fell in love with it, it was the only devotional I had come across that spoke "directly to me." It made me feel as if I was truly with God hearing Him talk to my heart, in a way that is similar to reading through the scripture and stumbling across that passage that was clearly put in your path for that day. Yummy goodness.

So on a search for the book I went and ended up coming across the Jesus Calling App and thought it was a brilliant idea to have it so downloaded it to my nifty iPhone and am encouraged by the ability to have it at instant access. There is definitely something about opening a book in the morning sipping a cup of coffee (especially when God's Words are in it) but unfortunately I am of the generation that likes immediate satisfaction (working on this!) and this app does just that- I can share it at any point in the day or re-read myself! All about this!

Today's devotional was so sweet to my soul. More than that though I loved getting to exchange the simple text with Kristin about how good it was- giving me another opportunity to watch the Lord speak into our lives and friendship. Part of living in community is getting to "do life together." It was so small but awesome this morning to watch this devotional strike me and then hear from Kristin that she as well loved it. It lets us encourage each other and share in the same truth. I love this kind of stuff. 

I then sent it off to a sweet friend and my hubby and decided that it was one of those that everyone should get to soak in. So.... here it is, in all its goodness- hope you enjoy:

KEEP WALKING with Me along the path I have chosen for you. Your desire to live close to Me is a delight to My heart. I could instantly grant you the spiritual riches you desire, but that is not My way for you. Together we will forge a pathway up the high mountain. The journey is arduous at times and you are weak. Someday you will dance light footed on the high peaks; but for now, you walk is often plodding and heavy. All I require of you is to take the next step, clinging to My hand for strength and direction. Though the path is difficult and the scenery dull at the moment, there are sparkling surprises just around the bend. Stay on the path I have selected for you. It is truly the path of Life.

If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand. - Psalm 37:23-24

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. - Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)

Seriously now... what an awesome God. It gives me chills to know we can actually delight Him, it gives me strength to know He selected this path, for as much as I may not understand or always think it is great, He selected it which means there is a divine purpose behind it, Glory will surly come. It gives me hope for the days I will dance on the peaks, and more than anything I tear up at the thought that He, an almighty God, will forge a path TOGETHER with me, Erin Tuohy, with all my sinful ways. Simply love. I am encouraged to cling to Him for that is all He requires and to see those sparkling surprises that are yet to come. How great is our God.


xoxo

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"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)

Thinking back I can't remember if I have mentioned that Michael and I are part of something called a foundation group. It's a community group that is put together through our church- Watermark- with five other couples and a mentor couple. For 18 months we go through curriculum designated by Watermark and are coached on it by our mentors in order to best prepare us as Newlyweds for our marriages to last and on how to live in community, and do it well. At the end of those 18 months it is the hope that we will continue on as a community group apart from our mentors. I will say that it hands down has bettered our marriage, friendships, lives, thought process and most importantly walk with Christ more than any other single thing. We are big supporters. 

So far we have read When Sinners Say I Do and followed Watermark's own financial curriculum MoneyWise. Now we are into this little wonder called The Lasting Promise. It is about all thing communication! So as a guy in our mentor's community group said the definition of good communication can be put up to Ephesians 4:29. Wholeheartedly agree. With that said, we are on an adventure to memorize it. I put it as a post-it on my office computer which has done wonders, as well as left the email with just the scripture address in my inbox so I am reminded daily to think of it and try to repeat it back. Oh the tricks of years worth of studying for exams!

The first time I really took this verse in, it was actually on the table at our foundation group leaders home- the dinning room table. What a glorious idea. Tables are where people talk the great, the good and unfortunately the bad and nasty. It's most commonly surrounded by family or close friends and seems like a safe place to let it all out. However, this comes with the ability for the line between chat that builds others up and gossip to be seriously grayed quite easily. With no negative intentions at all it goes from a simple conversation about a low point in a day, or a topic on mind to a full on tear down sesh about whatever may have caused that. However, I wonder what that would look like if every time you looked up from your place your eyes were smack dab faced with scripture.  I bet you would think twice, I would. 

Along with the dinning room table encouragement this verse also gives pure general encouragement and guidelines for what Godly communication looks like. Imagine how much our conversations would alter if all we spoke were words that would build others up. Imagine how those around us would feel, good I bet. Imagine what our spouses would be like towards us, how well they would take our words into consideration, the love our marriage would pour out. All due to the knowledge that the words being spoken were only for that single purpose of encouraging and making each other stronger in faith and more Christlike. Such good stuff!

These reasons alone along with the pure joy in engraving God's Word on my heart makes me pumped to get the chance to add it to my scripture memory bank with my fellow friends, I love being in this as a team and growing in our walks together. Not only is it nice accountability but its fun to look back and see how much we've walked through together and how rockin' our marriages are going to be with such lessons as this one! 

xoxo



 

Michael and I FINALLY went on our honeymoon. That's right, almost two years into marriage we still had not set off on any type of vacation together (minus our mini Wales getaways). We had been saving for a down payment on a house and then decided to push and wait a year until we know the area better and what we are looking for so we decided to head off for our long awaited weekend together!

It was a 5 hour drive with little Lincoln to this fun little city called San Antonio, as you probably know it is indeed not too little at all! We had never been and our sweet friends did the math and research that led us to finally choosing it as our destination! It was stunning. Michael had surprised me and got us a room with a balcony over the river walk, the sun was shining and my heart was stolen once again by being along the water! We adventured out for the next three days and saw some Texas history (The Alamo), got a fabulous candle that was hand made before our eyes, had the best Mexican of our lives and enjoyed walks along the water just spending time together! Best part of it all I forgot the phone chargers so for three days neither of us were competing for the attention of the other versus Angry Birds! Hallelujah!

I will second my dear friend Chrisey in saying, that a yearly vacation is worth the price- it is completely and utterly towards your marriage. Michael is my best friend and sometimes it is just nice to put the responsibility to the wind and just enjoy being young, married and absolutely head over heels in love! Cant wait for next year already!

xoxo

Our View!

Yum Yum.

The Alamo

I am a true sucker for a trolley!

Taking a Ride!

Mi Tierras- BEST MEXICAN EVER.

This makes my heart happy =)

There is a very precious thing in our life named Lincoln. He is by far the sweetest gift and we just adore him. You can ask any of my friends, and they will laugh and tell you that its pretty ridiculous how much we love him. The first year we were married and living in England I was struggling with filling my time and not missing home so for Valentine's day Mike surprised me with finding this little love of a puppy. When we first went into the home Mike joked that I was a goner due to this ball of fluff and his insane pinky of a tale wagging at rapid rate. We also knew when we saw the condition of the house that this dog was coming home with us no matter what. We learned with time that this was not the best home for him and are still working on eating habits that come from having been malnutrition, but the joy he brings outweighs that completely. He made the trip over from England with Mike and was a trooper through customs and all. Everyday he fills our life with laughter and we feel so privileged that he is ours! Lincoln is such a large part of Team Tuohy (he will always be Mike's "British Baby") and we thought he deserved his own post full of all his goodness that we get to gawk at each day (we will try to keep it to a minimum)...

Steals my heart every time!

Smooch!

He loves this!

Sweet Baby's First Bath

So Pumped, Cant you tell!

All snuggled up under there!

12 years ago today I was in 6th grade running into my grandparents house with my baby sister after school to be greeted by our dad on the phone in Colorado. It is one of the very few times I remember hearing my father cry. It was a cry of sadness, devastation, pain and more than anything fear. Fear for what was occurring right around them and fear of the unknown that would come after it, for him and my mama were about to witness just how much would be lost that day.

Growing up in Colorado, Highlands Ranch, I had never been concerned with my safety nor had my parents to the best of my knowledge. On this day, however, the selfish act of two young men would change that forever. Not only for our small suburb of Denver but for cities all over our nation. It also meant that our sweet sweet family friend's lives would also be changed forever when those young men took the life of their son. I won't begin to pretend I know what that was like for them, from watching my parents cope with it though, I can only imagine it was unbearable. Often times it seems as if we are invincible, that the stuff we see on the news is devastating but would never happen to us or to our "people". However, each person on there is somebody's "person". This time it was one of our own, we are not invincible- each day is not a guarantee.

Our sweet friends are two of the strongest people I know and each year my heart goes out to them and I am reminded of the privileged in each hug and each "I love you", today is no different. I write this today as a reminder- I don't want there to ever be a day that we forget what happened and stop appreciating the gift of love and life. There is nothing we can do to change what has been done, however we can choose to never forget those beautiful kids who were tragically taken away and instead continue to push forward in love and truth in their memory. For each life mattered and deserves to be remembered; their story is not finished.

 Choose to love today, choose to wrap your arms around your family and squeeze tight. Call those who are distant and remind them of their meaning to you. Smile at the stranger in the elevator and be a light for life. Uncle Rich and Aunt Sue, I love you dearly and you are a testament to strength, courage and love- I know my parents agree- we are blessed to be a part of your lives. Danny, you will never be forgotten. Columbine, we love you.

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Our goal every week is to write about a verse that is changing our life as we memorize it with the context and meaning into our hearts. I will admit I have been "scripture crazy" recently- I just cannot get enough of His truth and all He promises to and for us. For week one I wanted to do one that is so dear to my heart.

“Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand" Jeremiah 18:6 (NIV)

In Context:
 ¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ² “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” ³ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. ⁴ But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.  ⁵ Then the word of the LORD came to me. ⁶ He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. ⁷ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, ⁸ and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned" Jeremiah 18:1-8

The potter was making a pot but he discovered a flaw. Possibly the potter allowed his hand to slip, knocking the pot off center on the wheel. At any rate, the pot was damaged. When a pot has been damaged, the potter does not throw away the clay,  the potter remakes the pot into another vessel.God said that just as the potter can use the damaged clay, He can make something beautiful from the ruins of our lives. (Commentary from C. Littlefield & J. Mallory).

How wonderful that our Lord knows we may slip and be damaged from His perfect plan due to our own sin or our life circumstances, but that does not mean He leaves us. Instead, He simply reshapes us into a new perfect plan in His wonderful and caring hands. He never lets us go.

I use to wonder what it looked like to God, our lives, how did He know all we were going to do with free will/live through - even the bad- and still have this perfect plan. It is because He is sovereign and constantly making something new and beautiful out of slime and mess. I often find it helps to put my name in versus such as these when I am in those quite and weak moments as it tends to sink deeper, "Like clay in the hand of the potter; so are you in my hand,_____________" mmm just the thought of being in his hand warms my soul and comforts me.What a truth that can free us from shame and inadequacy, from feeling as if we are not ever going to be good enough again. That is a lie and the truth to that is God is always using our story for it is His story, He does not allow those to end without some form of good. We don't need a Sunday afternoon, or a birthday or a New Years Eve to have a clean slate. He is already on it, wiping that flaw smooth and creating His masterpiece that is even better now than it was before.

enough said. 
 i love us credit...

Lately our world has relied on soaking in scripture and leaning on God to answer our questions (as it should always be). We have such a blessed life, but it is not without trials. If our life is easy peasy I would seriously question whose hands we were in =). This is not to say our lives should not be full of goodness and joy, I am just a firm believer as children of Christ living for Him that if we are not doing something to make the enemy tick, we are probably also not doing something that brings glory to our heavenly father. Think about it...

So today, we wanted to share some of the sweet promises that we are holding on to for they alone are truth. It is funny how I have struggled my entire life since becoming a believer to memorize verses, until now. When you need those sweet promises, and turn to those sweet promises daily- they penetrate your heart and are engraved there forever:

"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still" Exodus 14:14

"The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing" Psalm 34:10

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

"Look at the nations and watch- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5

"Trust in the LORD with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all of your ways follow Him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" Philippians 4:13

What sweet sweet promises are these. Man, Exodus 14:14 "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still" how truly beautiful is that. Right now as Team Tuohy battles through some heavy stuff from my childhood this is huge for us. So often I find myself wanting to go to battle for my heart and my feelings, for what happened but I do not need to. As long as I am living with Christ, He will go to battle for me, I need only to trust Him in that and let Him do His works. For as it is promised in Habkkuk  His works are far better than anything I could believe, even if I were told. This sweet promise I am soaking in daily. I know the Lord has a plan for my life, my life verse since I was saved was Proverbs 3:5 which tells me this. However, I have still always wanted to push forward and plan our life; deciding where to go and what to do trying to sprint this race He designed to be a marathon. I can say with full confidence He is preparing us for something with all we are going through right now, I don't know what and so we wait with an open heart for whatever He is doing here, we only want His will to be done and are guarded of making it something of our own. As I told my sweet girlfriends the other day, I welcome that plan with giant open arms and so therefore I welcome all this yuck that it takes to get us there because I believe our God is good and I know He will do things with our life that are far greater than we can even begin to fathom. How he loves us....Until then we continue to hang onto these sweet sweet sweet promises full of love in hopes that we are constantly being changed to be more like Him along the way.

Have a blessed day sweet friends!

xoxo

Totally Set the Atmosphere!

He Really Enjoyed the Film ;)

Amazing.

Team Tuohy!

$6 for 3 New Releases- Heck Yes!