Hello Everyone,
We took a pause at the end of 2024, so we felt like this would be a great time to reintroduce ourselves, talk about why we created A Beautiful Adventure Marriage in the first place, catch you up on what has been going on in our lives over the last few years, and cast some vision on where we are going with in the future.
If you are new here, we are Alex and Tara Payne. We live in Alabama and have been married for 13 years. We met in 2010 when the two churches we were attending at the time took a trip to Israel. The Lord took us on the adventure of a lifetime to introduce us to each other, and adventure is still a huge part of our lives.
Where it all began…
We had been married for around 5 years when people started coming up to us and commenting on our marriage. Everyone seemed to be genuinely surprised that we were still happy now that a few years had passed. At first, we shrugged it off, but the comments kept coming. This caused us to really start looking into how we were living our lives. We contributed our happiness to several things.
Pre-Marital Counseling
When we got back from Israel, things moved quickly, we were engaged after 6 months of dating. Our pastors at the time, felt that was too quick. They would only agree to marry us if we went through extensive premarital counseling. Alex and I took this time seriously and gleaned as much as we could from this season. We also had multiple couples that simply became our friends. They modeled what a happy marriage, one with respect and honor, looked like.
Divorce was taken off the table
Before we got married, we had decided that we were going to take divorce off the table entirely. We realized that doing this left us two possible options in our marriage. Be married and happy or be married and miserable. We both chose to be married and happy which led to being intentional about investing in our marriage. After our wedding we continued to invest in our marriage. We attended conferences, read books, and continued to grow closer to the L-rd and each other.
We established a good foundation
And of course, the ultimate source for our marriage was we kept the Lord in the center of it. Regardless of what was going on around us we both kept our eyes on Him.
As we look back at all of this, we realized that nothing we were doing was super complicated or unattainable. We also noticed that marriage was being presented in a very negative way, even within the Christian community. Divorce rates were crazy high, and the majority of marriages were not in a good place.
Once we realized this, we wanted to do something about it.
We both love being married so much and we believe this same feeling is attainable for anyone. All it takes is some intentionality. With this in mind we started A Beautiful Adventure Marriage in October of 2018.
We believe marriage is God’s idea. It is a good idea, and it can be a beautiful adventure. Through this space we offer practical resources and Biblical truths that have helped us through the years. We want to be a part of changing the culture of marriage and thereby lowering the divorce rate.
The Lord has done so much in the last 7 years.
He brought some amazing people into our lives to help us along the way. We had our mentors Andy and Penny who came alongside us and supported us from the very beginning of the ministry. Alex’s Mother and Stepfather made it possible for our book to be published. Our friends Anthony and Shelena connected us to the Youversion Bible App and opened the doors for us to write reading plans. There are countless others who have donated, prayed, and added content for this ministry to be successful.
Honestly when we were first talking about starting this, I never dreamed it would go the way it did.
A lot has happened in our marriage and in our lives since we started A Beautiful Adventure Marriage, especially in the last 3 years.
In November of 2022, Alex and I stepped down from our positions at the church we were attending. Ministry had been a huge part of our lives since we had been married. It was time for us to take a break and rest. We agreed to take a 6-month sabbatical and intentionally rest and be nomadic. We visited all kinds of different churches in that 6-month period.
During this time God did something amazing. He gave us a gift we did not have the wisdom to even ask for.
With Alex and I meeting in Israel we have always been open and drawn to the Jewish culture. Because of this I bought a book during our sabbatical called, “A Time to Advance” by Chuck Pierce. It was about the Biblical calendar and how it related to the 12 tribes of Israel. We both dove into the book and learned so much about the Biblical calendar. (This is the calendar God instituted in Exodus and Leviticus and it is still very applicable for our lives today.) In January of 2023, we went to visit a local messianic synagogue. Messianic Jews believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah the Bible prophesied would come. They still follow the Biblical calendar and customs just with Jesus being their Savior.
After service the gentleman sitting behind us introduced himself and asked us what had brought us to the synagogue. We explained to him that we were taking a sabbatical and shared the book we had been reading. As it would turn out, the book I had purchased was actually the sequel to another book called “The Messianic Church Arising” by Robert Heidler. Our new friend, Brian instantly went to the library and grabbed a copy and gifted it to us that night.
That friendship and that book was the beginning of quite the adventure for Alex and me.
Since then, we have started following the Biblical calendar and observing the High Holy Days that are commanded in the Old Testament. We have completely fallen back in love with the Word of God as a whole. We study it together every week during Shabbat. Because of this lifestyle change our love for the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is stronger than it has ever been.
This way of life has brought a lot of joy and peace into our home. It has also brought a lot of healing and blessings. God has used it to solidify our marriage because in a lot of ways, we were now on the same page, and we weren’t in the past. We followed this path for a year and a half by ourselves with the help of our friend Brian and his wife Teresa. But in May of 2024, we found a community in Birmingham that follows the same path. Since then, the Lord has blessed us with such an amazing group of people from all different walks of life who are following this same path.
This change in us has raised several questions.
The main one being, “Are we Jewish now?” The answer to this question is a solid, no. We can’t become Jewish and that was never the goal. The goal for us was and still is to live a life of obedience to the Word of God. A life of holiness that honors the Father.
We are not perfect, and we have not always walked this path, or presented it to others in the correct way, but we are learning and growing each day and thankful for the grace the Lord has given us. Our prayer is to share this with everyone we come in contact with and therein share the joy we have found with others.
Fast forward to November of 2024
Alex and I suffered a lot of loss within a two-week period. Both my grandfather and Alex’s grandmother passed away in the same weekend. Then Andy, our mentor, passed away unexpectedly a few days later. Three people and three marriages that had impacted us greatly had come to the end of their time here on earth.
We decided that instead of pushing through like our culture tells us to do, we were going to pause and actually grieve the loss of the ones we loved, so that’s exactly what we did. We pressed pause in November and have been radio silent since then. There are certain losses that just take time to process through. We left it up to the Lord to let us know when we were supposed to pick this back up, and we also prayed about how we wanted to move forward with it in regard to how our lifestyle has changed.
A few weeks ago we felt the nudge to get things going again. Encouraging marriages through Biblical truth and practical resources is still our ultimate goal. We know that a strong marriage can only stand on a firm foundation of Scripture. With that in mind we are going to do more deep dives into the Bible as a whole. We will look at Scripture through a Hebraic lense, look into the meaning of the original language, and find ways to apply the principles to marriage in a practical way.
Alex and I are thankful for the past, and for everyone that has been a part of this journey. We are equally as excited about the future. The Lord has been faithful through everything, and we know that He will continue to lead and guide us on this beautiful adventure.
So, let’s go!