Setting Priorities as a Christian, Married, Career woman.
I already know what you are thinking. You are thinking “Briana, the order of those adjectives in that title reads awkwardly.” Yes, it does, but I did that intentionally. It sounds more natural to say "a married, Christian, career woman". The latter description perfectly described me and my priorities last year. But as smooth as it sounds, it's still in the wrong order.
Last year as a newlywed, I put A LOT of time, energy, and money into “becoming a good wife”. Unfortunately, I still feel like I failed big time. The more I tried to master the wifehood role, the more chaotic our marriage seemed to get. And all the while I was losing track of my personal health and burning out in my career too. I read books, talked to married friends, went to counseling, improved my cooking skills, and bought lingerie. You name it, I tried it. I tried very hard to make things better. But what I learned is, as much as I love my husband, and as desperately as I want to have a happy marriage and a successful career, those desires cannot come before having a healthy relationship with God. God himself is the reason me, my husband, and my career exist. That means none of those things work well without Him in it.
As a Christian woman, this concept should obviously be a no-brainer. In theory, I know that God should always come first in all the areas of my life. In my singleness, it was so "easy" to put this principle effectively into practice. When you are single you really do have a lot of time to yourself. When you’re a Christian single, it's much easier to share that alone time with God. However, once I got married, I began to experience what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. He says,
“[…]And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.”
Divided devotion is a real thing, especially in marriage. And although your marriage is wildly important to God, it is not more important than God himself. As I reflect on our first year of marriage, the prayers, the praise breaks, the fasting, and the Bible studying always began once the storm was already in full effect and subsided when the storm was over. I would turn up the dial on pursuing my relationship with God only after things had gone wrong, not realizing that I needed to be seeking his face just as fervently at all times. And even more eye-opening, I was asking God for help to correct my husband, fix my marriage, and accelerate my career, when I really should have been asking God to fix me and show me how to be holy in body and spirit. It also doesn’t help that I struggle immensely with comparison. Engaging on social media and comparing our traumatic first year with snapshots of other happy newlyweds made me feel that I was simply just not cut out for this.
My mother used to always tell me that I have to learn things the hard way. And I can tell you that she is correct. It took nearly a year of marital roller-coastering (totally made that word up) to help me understand what it means to truly prioritize my devotion. I have by no means mastered this completely, but here are a few strategies that I am learning to help me prioritize my relationship with God over my relationship with my husband and work.
1. Respectfully reserve my first waking moments to acknowledge God
For me that means as soon as I enter my conscious mind, I enter into prayer. Sometimes this can be difficult when I wake up late for work, or if my husband is awake and waiting to finish a tabled conversation from the night before. Nonetheless, I am learning to be still and acknowledge God before I start rushing, and to kindly request of my husband a few moments of silence to acknowledge God before we begin.
2. Purposefully spend time together with my husband in prayer in the morning.
Praying together is a beautiful way to allow your relationship with your spouse to fully collide with your relationship with God and place Him at the very center of it.
3. Avoid relying solely on our prayer time together as quiet time with God.
Although praying together is good, having time with God for myself is actually more important. The Transparent Truth is - marriage only lasts while we are alive here on earth. We will not be riding each other’s coattails into heaven. Therefore, it is even more important that we both have our own individual personal relationship with God before we share a relationship with God together.
4. Express my frustrations about my husband or my career to God first - THEN address them in conversation with my husband and colleagues respectively.
Practicing this order of hierarchy puts God at the forefront of every conversation that is to follow. Talking to God about it first prompts me to think about what the Bible says about how to respond to specific situations and conversations. It also allows me to be vulnerable with God and to seek Him for validation and gives God the opportunity to correct me if I am the one that is in the wrong.
5. Pursue discipleship and my calling to spread the gospel.
When I got married I already knew that being a wife was not my "new assignment". And when I graduated from physical therapy school I knew that this career was not my "new purpose". Rather, being a wife is a very special and honorable responsibility that I was given in addition to my original calling which is to be a "fisher of women" for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Being a wife should help me accomplish this, not hinder, distract, or discourage me from it. Likewise, my career as a physical therapist should not stop me from sharing the gospel message - it should serve as a vehicle to expose even more people to the goodness of God.
I enjoy being married (sometimes lol), I like being a physical therapist, and I love creating Christian content for my personal brand. These are healthy desires, but they are desires that must be kept in check, and never placed before God. As I grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I will inevitably blossom and grow in my earthly roles as a wife and career woman. Wifehood and work have their place, and neither of them can be first if we are going to pursue lives worth living.
I would like to think that I am not the only "Christian, married, career woman" who has struggled with prioritizing God in her life. If you are reading this and fall into this category currently - or used to fall into this category, please feel free to encourage your sisters with your testimony, words of encouragement, and advice for keeping first things first. As always, - if you have your own mind, leave a piece of it in the comments!
