{"id":1166,"date":"2024-02-12T11:50:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T19:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2024-10-12T15:49:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T22:49:45","slug":"its-not-about-the-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/?p=1166","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Not About the Ring"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1167\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1167\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/footprintsRing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1167\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/footprintsRing.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/footprintsRing.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/footprintsRing-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/footprintsRing-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1167\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Ring<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When it became clear to my sweetheart and I that God was directing us to be married, we had to make several decisions about our wedding, as does every couple.<\/p>\n<p><em>Neither of us was wealthy, and we were firm in our belief that it was not God\u2019s purpose and plan for us to incur debt for this life-changing event.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Although some couples spend thousands, and tens of thousands of dollars on rings, we chose to \u201ckeep it simple,\u201d and bought matching rings with one of our most favorite sayings on them. We both had much appreciated the \u201cFootprints\u201d poem over many years, and the motto, \u201cIt was then that I carried you,\u201d seems so appropriate to beginning a new life together as man and wife.<\/p>\n<p><em>A fancy ring doesn\u2019t make a solid marriage \u2013 living with Christ as the head of household makes a solid marriage. Each couple has to decide what is right for them, but we must all make sure we are not counting on a flashy, expensive ring to keep us together. There is nothing wrong with wearing expensive jewelry, as long as the jewelry isn\u2019t what makes \u2013 or keeps \u2013 us happy and as long as we aren\u2019t wearing it for the purpose of impressing others or flouting a \u201cstatus\u201d we think we\u2019ve achieved.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t love my husband less because he didn\u2019t purchase an expensive ring. I love him MORE because he is faithful in seeking God\u2019s will for every aspect of our lives. Twenty years later, my sweetheart is on his 3<sup>rd<\/sup> ring (he broke the first two) and I am still wearing my original. The marriage is strong, and it\u2019s not about the ring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it became clear to my sweetheart and I that God was directing us to be married, we had to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/?p=1166\" class=\"more-link\"><span class=\"more-button\">Continue reading &gt;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It&#8217;s Not About the Ring<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[11,10,18,19],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-building-and-maintaining-relationships","tag-christian-lifestyle","tag-christian-living","tag-christian-marriage","tag-christian-relationship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}