From Miss to Mrs!

From Miss to Mrs! Allow me to reintroduce myself. Hi, my name is Shernice Lyles..

If you don’t know this already, I just posted on my social media that I am married and so I wanted to share little parts of what it’s like to be a new wife. I know this is new information to a lot of people but my husband and I have been enjoying our marriage for some time so all the excitement blew over quite a while ago for us. It’s still nice to feel and receive so much love from everyone else though..

I saw a post before I got married, someone said “your wedding day is the least you’ll ever love your spouse”. I didn’t understand because that’s suppose to be the best day of my life, everything would be perfect perfect, he would be perfect, we’d be so in love on our wedding day. The truth is that people like scaring us into thinking that it only goes down hill from here but that’s a choice you both make.

As my husband and I started growing together, I felt myself falling deeper in love with him. I thought, no way…it’s happening.

Your wedding day is the least you’ll ever love your spouse

I do

I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to be married, to carry my husband’s last name.

Let’s first talk about the moment right before I said I do. I know what you’re thinking, “oh but they’re so in love, it was bound to happen, it’s just a perfect love story”. I agree with being in love but not so much on the “perfect” part. There’s no such thing as a perfect marriage. As much as I was excited to marry the love of my life, I was pretty darn nervous too and so was he. This was a huge commitment and our lives were about to change drastically.

From moving in together on our wedding day. Making a commitment not only in front of family but God. Changing my last name. Discovering who we are as a married couple. Finding my identity as a married woman. Honoring God in our togetherness to keeping our marriage as sacred as we possibly could. It was a lot but I would do it all over again if I were to find him in another universe.

Moving in together on our wedding day

This was such a special time for me. It was new to us both. I was so excited but also nervous about coexisting in one space with someone that I had never lived with before. We had gone on weekend trips from time to time when we first dated but that’s nothing compared to actually living with one another.

We were going to view our new place together two weeks before we moved in, we showed up at the leasing office and there was a note saying they would be 2 hours late. I had work that day so I couldn’t stay but I trusted my husband would find us what we needed. He did.

The day we got married, we stopped by what would be our new home, right before our reception. My husband opened the door and we walked in together. I stood there for a minute, soaking it all in and was immediately overwhelmed. So much went through my mind in that moment. The reality of being married sunk in, I had a place that I now got to call home, this is where we would start making memories.

This is our new life.

Committing to God

Preparing for our wedding day comes naturally to us women. We do all the planning, pick out the perfect dress, venue, flowers, cake. We could do it all with little to no help. Here’s something I haven’t heard much of though, couples preparing for their marriage more than their actual wedding day. You could never be prepared enough for what’s to come in your marriage but prioritizing and showing more interest in your marriage than anything else during such an exciting time builds a solid foundation to how your marriage will start off.

When you make the promise to love, honor, respect and protect one another till death do you part not just in front of family but God Himself, that’s a huge commitment. It’s very serious. In that moment everything is exciting so it’s easy to make promises, say yes okay and amen. The real commitment is for you and your partner to honor those words during the toughest times together. Are you still going to love me after that argument we had? Are you going to continue to respect me after I lost my job? Are you going to protect me against those you may love the most? Are you going to honor me when I feel like I’ve lost all hope?

That’s what love is, choosing to love your partner through it all and honoring God through every step.

Changing my last name

I didn’t realize how emotional this process would be for me. My brother and I would joke for years how we couldn’t wait for me to change my last name one day (it’s an inside joke). I thought it would be so easy once it was time to get it done. I’ve been Miss Ground my whole life, that’s what I’m known by.

What was painful was that my relationship with my dad had changed drastically during the time I got married, he became the father I desperately needed in my adult life and it happened around the same time I was changing my last name which felt like I was letting a part of me go, a part of him too.

I made the decision to keep my husband’s last name because it signified a start of a new life. The young girl (Miss Ground) was no more, she had become a woman (Mrs Lyles) it’s like a new identity. When I told a friend of mine that I was changing my last name she told me that I would always be a Ground but the new chapter is worth embracing and that comes with embracing every single thing that has to change.

We are one, that means everything has to be in sync.

Who are we after marriage?

My husband and I have changed so much over time and we continue to grow and change everyday. You discover each others likes and dislikes, what makes your partner happy, angry or sad. You get to see the real them, no filters. One thing my dad used to tease me a lot about growing up was just how terrible I looked when I’m asleep. Guess who teases me now? And before you ask, no my dad didn’t say anything to him about it.

There’s a lot of that in marriage, parts of yourself you would much rather hide from your spouse but can’t. That’s what love is though, they see the ugly and choose to love you anyway.

Finding my identity as a married woman

It was really important to me that I became a proverbs 31 woman.

Proverbs 31:10-12 talks about how rare it is to find a noble wife. It also talks about her husband having full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. It says that she brings him good and not harm all the days of her life. What that means to me is to make my spouse’s life better than before. I will love him, respect him and take care of him the best way I know how.

I was raised by my two strong women, my grandmother and my mother. I learned what it takes to be a good wife by watching them love their spouses and taking care of their households. Taking care of my husband came easy to me because I had learned a lot from them when I was younger.

What I needed to figure out was who I was as an individual. I was changing and so were my interests, my dress code, my inner circle and so much more. It all just came naturally to be honest and I just embraced it. Some changes were easier than others but I just let them happen naturally.

Honoring God in our togetherness

Now I know you know what I’m talking about here. You know, the thing that grown ups do behind close doors. I wanted to touch on this just a tad bit. First thing’s first, I don’t know if every couple feels this way maybe not immediately but for my spouse and I the guilt of our “togetherness” after marriage went away. Because that is what God wants for us right? He wants for us to wait till marriage and there’s a pretty good reason as to why. Once you and your spouse tie the knot though, I don’t know, it just feels so natural, it feels blessed. “What? Blessed?” Yes, God finds joy in us becoming one, He created it for a reason, for us to enjoy once we’re married and let me tell you..enjoyment is an understatement!

I know I sound like the awkward Life Orientation teacher who’s too afraid to just say the actual word, I’m sorry. I am awkward like that.

Keeping our marriage sacred

Nobody needs to know your business. It was important that my husband and I each have a person that we fully trust when it comes to our marriage but for the most part we prefer to keep things quite private in our relationship. We don’t overshare, just to make small gossip with people. We never speak ill of one another to someone else, it’s just a form of respect. It’s important to us to keep our marriage sacred.

We Love respect and protect each other at all cost.

This post comes from the heart, I was so excited to share this part of my life with my Adina family. There will be other posts up for you guys now that the cat’s out of the bag.

I’m excited to share

xoxo Mrs Lyles