Chen Chronicles

Marriage is an art form like no other. It often requires much sculpting, shaping and sometimes completely erasing the images from the past and starting anew in the same relationship. Our late pastor who married us, used to say, "One Life, One Wife." Sometimes you just want to quit and leave and this is the devil at work in your heart. We must guard our hearts daily  against this. When someone does something wrong to us, we are called to forgive them immediately, whether they ask for it or not. This is no easy feat; I am the first one to admit that. But this is forgiveness.  In a Tenth Avenue North Christian song entitled, "Remade," the artists sing: "You are more than the choices that you've made, You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, You are more than the problems you create, You've been remade. Cause' it's not about what you've done, But what's been done for you. This is not about where you'v...

As I sit down to write this, I think back about how many times Aaron has told me....."Don't say I love you ....show me."  I have to say, yes, honey you are 100 percent correct in this point-of-view.  I am sorry I have never gotten it, until TODAY! Sometimes, for me to understand a concept, I require a practical, life example where I am forced to apply the principle.   I am helping our church with something called Winter Haven, where basically it is as it sounds. Our church is providing a respite for homeless men in this program from the cold and with that, providing meals for them for a week. It is a wonderful program, and for many, the ONLY way they will be exposed to the Gospel.  We have ONE chance to reach many of these men before sending them out on the street again. My job (besides cooking part of the meal one night) is to call and remind everyone who has volunteered to help with lunches for the men. The lunches will have personal notes inside them and si...

I am, by no means an expert on marriage.  With that said, I have been married for seven years and together with my husband for eight...so the better part of a decade.  I can say WITHOUT RESERVATION that he is the best thing that has ever happened to me, aside from my sweet adopted daughter from Russia.   This weekend, we were blessed enough to attend an Air Force program known as Yellow Ribbon that was a re-integration following a deployment program.  A couple of the workshops we attended were geared towards figuring out what personality type you are of four main personalities.  This stuff is fascinating to me because I majored in communications and sociology.  In my relationship with Aaron, I am VERY much a communicator, but he is too.  It is the KIND of communicator that matters and the knowledge that each of us has a little of each color in us, but we all have a PRIMARY color too. So, those of you that KNOW me, probably know that my p...