One Brick at a Time

Baggage is an interesting concept that has a major impact in relationships. I think that how a couple handles and helps each other with baggage will define and determine whether or not the relationship, especially a marriage will go the distance.  Nick and I developed an interesting approach to our baggage that helped us to fall even more in love with each other while helping unpack our bags. (Which are full of heavy bricks).

Nick and I developed a concept called ONE BRICK AT A TIME. We knew that our past experiences had caused us to build walls around our hearts, feelings, emotions and comfort zones.  Those separate walls were what were coming between us and our happily ever after.  We knew we not only needed to tear down each other's individual walls, but we also needed to build a wall or fortress around both of us together in order to protect us, from the forces that would want to tear our relationship down (THE BIG BAD WOLF your familiar with the three little piggies right).  We knew we needed to build our relationship with strong bricks, and in order to do that our personal walls needed to come down. If not our relationship and future marriage would be susceptible to all the forces in our day trying to tear marriage family and relationships apart! ( Porn, immorality, war, chaos, anger, pride, poverty) THE BIG BAD WOLF called LIFE in MORTALITY. And from the three little pigs, we knew that straw, and sticks weren't going to make the cut.  We had to do things the right way, and we needed to use bricks, from our personal walls. For your entertainment and enlightenment here's Disney's Version of the Big Bad Wolf Story. One of the pigs major problems was that they were so into putting up there own personal walls to protect themselves, which put them in danger, instead of working together in building a strong house for all of them.  The two first piggies were lucky they had a great friend in the smart Brick Pig, or they would have been lunch. I believe that working together is one of the first steps to building a strong foundation for a family, marriage, or friendship. Also as the third pig new, building a strong foundation (relationship) takes time, effort and COMMITMENT, but the results are worth it.

 Nick and I decided that slowly every day we would take one brick from each others individual wall and use it to build our fortress of our love protecting and uniting both of us in the same circle. I hope that visual makes sense.  We wanted to turn our past hurt and weaknesses into strengths that we could build our lives around.  A brick could be a fear, or a bad experience, or a mistake, or a regret.  We would remove them by communicating with each other, not judging, and explaining why that brick was even there, why that fear was there, and what kept it up.  We are still slowly tearing bricks down.  During our engagement I think our structure looked like it did above, a skeleton of a house, but starting.  Our goal is to be able to build a sturdy relationship fortress like the one below. Making our Marriage our home, our comfort, our security, and where we could finally let our guard down.  This process has not only helped us to get closer as a couple. But it also has allowed us to know what we need to do to protect our relationship, and what we need to do individually and together to always be growing together. It is not always easy some days are hard and we end up putting part of our personal walls back up, or having one of the walls of our fortress fall down.  But as long as we keep building and trying we will build a life for ourselves that the big bad wolf won't be able to tear down.  One day we will have little ones and I want us to be able to protect them in a house with a strong foundation, which will be our marriage in family.  To help them know what a strong family is, and to give them the best shot at love and life possible. To build around us ONE BRICK AT A TIME, and when that big bad wolf (life) comes to huff and puff and blow our relationship to the ground. He won't be able too! 

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf.........NOT US :D

With LOVE, REB&NICK