Married and Loving It!!! Feat Sade and Femi Lawal

Hello all!

It's the 2nd Married and Loving It edition and I am delighted to be interviewing this beautiful couple!

A big thanks to everyone who commented on the very first post of the series a fortnight ago! The feedback has been really wonderful and I thank God for bringing this project to life! If you haven't read it + an introduction to the series, you can catch-up HERE.

How have you been? It's been a while *covers face* I have missed you all.. I apologise for the unscheduled hiatus I am also very grateful to everyone who checked in! You are simply amazing! God bless you immensely!!

On to today's couple - They are people I respect and admire. I have worked quite well with the Mrs in the past year on a project and she is such a phenomenal go-getter and mover! The first time I got to 'know' her was through an article she wrote in Avantgarde magazine, sharing a very powerful personal experience in her marriage and how God gave her and her husband a great testimony! I hope that with her permission, I would share that story on here one day. Her faith and passion for God are truly admirable.

I have also known the Mr from afar and one word that could be used to describe him is 'dedication'. He is also a very personable and kind person. I thank God that they agreed to be featured today (on very short notice). OnePlustheOne is immensely grateful to our lovely couple of the week - Mr and Mrs Folasade and Femi Lawal.

Be blessed!

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Hello and welcome to Married and Loving It Mr and Mrs Femi-Lawal! We are glad to have you as our guests for the week! Congratulations on 16 years of marriage! Please tell us more about yourselves.

Mrs Femi-Lawal: We really bless the name of the Lord for 16 awesome years of being married to each other and 3 years of courtship, making it 19 years of knowing each other! Like I wrote in my Facebook tribute to the man of my dreams, it has been a journey marked with the faithfulness of God that has seen us through different kinds of experiences, love, abundance, breakthroughs, unbelievable miracles, loss of a child, extreme pain, doubts and fears about tomorrow, lack, suffering, confusion, indecision, betrayal etc. One thing stands out, my heartthrob loves and cherishes me, and I adore him because he means the world to me! Till date, he still shops for me head to toe because if you drop me off in the centre of the UK or USA, my shopping areas are Primark, Dollarshop and Poundland (infact I close down Poundland buying my household items which he calls JUNK), but 'Ololafemo' surely knows what he wants at Harrods, Next, Dillards, Macys of this world etc. I was transformed from a 'beret-wearing' holy Sister to a fashionable icon that is on fire for God and my Man!

Mr Femi-Lawal: We have been married for 16 wonderful years during which I have experienced the blessings of God in diverse ways. To be honest, I believe I got more than what I asked from God. It's like He just decided to wow me with His blessings all loaded in the wife of my youth. She is a wonderful giver, very God fearing, a teacher of the word, a good and Godly example to our children. She is my chief planner and organiser. Everything I bring before her in discussion receives a godly breath. I am so grateful for having her as my sparring partner in this tough Christian race.

Wowiee! What a beautiful introduction! I couldn't help but laugh at the 'beret-wearing' sister description (lol).. God is so awesome! Thank God and congratulations again on 16 interesting and eventful years! How did you meet?

Mrs Femi-Lawal: We met at Coopers and Lybrand now PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on the 16th of  October, 1995 as Trainee Accountants. I was counselling and advising him not to have specifics about the lady of his dreams as per height, weight and vital statistics among other things as a believer and I took him up as a project to show him the reality of life in God regarding making a choice in marriage. I didn't realise he had his eyes on me. Lol

Mr Femi-Lawal: We met at Coopers and Lybrand where we were both Trainee Auditors. We became friends and later discovered we shared a few things in common with respect to ideologies and this drew us further closer. Before I knew it, I used to escort her home…and my God I can’t forget the many years of waiting at Choir rehearsals on her to finish..sometimes I would wait till 10, 11pm. Those were budding years of our relationship.

Awww... (note to ladies, if he is not willing to wait for your choir/drama/ushering rehearsal, he is not ready for commitment! :-D).. And of course, thank God for the gift of counselling too :-)

Mr and Mrs Lawal, we know that the wedding day is usually one of the most special days in the life of a couple, could you share 3 memorable moments from that day with us?

Mrs Femi-Lawal - Experience 1- The groom's car chauffeur (a family friend) drove back home to rest during the wedding service, assuming that the service would be long, forgetting that my church (RCCG) don’t waste time. Also, there were no mobile phones then to monitor the gentleman. lol. We ended up enjoying the jolly ride to the reception with my parish pastor, Province Pastor Farinu - a good man, after a long wait.

Experience 2- If you are a ‘kept woman' at 28 like moi, and still untouched (aka Virgin), then, prepare for the painfully sweet journey of discovery of the real thing called sex. In fact, the next day (a Sunday) in church for thanksgiving, one of the mature women came to implore moi to walk properly, as my 'steppings' were telling the story of the night before.

Experience 3- The day October 31st 1998 was a beautiful sunny day, the wedding service was set for 11am, being an 'Environmental' Saturday in Lagos with its attendant traffic, but we prayed and heaven supported us as Environmental Sanitation day was cancelled suddenly by the State Government on Friday.

Experience no 2 got me laughing out loud).. Thank you so much for your realness and honesty ma'am.. Mr Lawal?

Experience 1 – I didn't allow my wife to dance too much at the reception as she was dancing more than me, so I picked her up and went straight to the high table.

Experience 2 - The wedding night was very good.

Halleluyah!.. Now this made me laugh out even more! Praise God for that sir! :-) Thank God you started married life on a great note, how did the next few years as a newly married couple go?

A lot of adjustment and learning, sometimes tough but mostly eye-opening to balance my relationship with the man I love and his fixed assets (relations). I am blessed because my hearthrob’s family is a warm and loving one so it was not difficult to adjust quickly. My mother-in-law of blessed memory was absolutely in love with me, her first son’s wife. Issues will come, extraneous factors but the strong foundation of our love for each other helped to weather the storm.

That's wonderful, thank you very much!

Now, we come to the part in Married and Loving It where we ask our guest-couple to list according to the number of years they have been married, Things Marriage has Taught Them.. Here goes..

16 THINGS MARRIAGE HAS TAUGHT US - Mr and Mrs Femi-Lawal

1. Unity of Spirit, Soul and Body is the ultimate thing. Don’t ever compromise this for anything.

2. In all things, at all times, no matter the situation, be grateful to God for your spouse. In fact, we encourage couples to keep a ‘gratitude journal’ where you record the things you are grateful for in your spouse. This helps to keep sanity when you drive each other up the wall. You can always 'report' your spouse to God via the Thanksgiving mode. Remember whatever you appreciate does not diminish.

3. Sustain the ‘Fire, Hot Romance and The Chase’ in your marriage. This helps to keep the marriage fire burning. For example, our wedding anniversary, October 31st is always a carnival of some sort. The most recent one, our 16th was celebrated in style, fresh flowers and chocolates were delivered to my office from Monday through Friday. On the D-day, I had so many gifts, you would assume it were my birthday or Valentine's Day.

4. Take care of the customer - Food
    Take care of the customer - Sex
    Take care of the customer - Sex

My heartthrob takes home-made food to work irrespective of the nature of my job (I am a Banker/Accountant/Singer/Worker/Mother of four and I've been for the past 16 years!)

5. Surround your spouse without suffocating each other. Send love notes, hot text messages, encouragement at work, share jokes, check on each other during the day.

6. BE REAL! If there is anything that has worked for us thus far, we are real people serving a real God. This changes everything. No forming please.

7. Learn to forgive, forgive and forgive. I tell my heartthrob because I want to see my God in glory, I have prepaid his forgiveness way ahead of his mistakes. Tough decision, but it helps to stay free before God and Man.

8. De-emphasise money in your relationships. It does not matter who earns the fattest pay cheque, it comes into the same family pot.

9. Stay close to God, The Author and Finisher of your Faith. When all is said and done, He is the only constant factor that does not change in the face of changing circumstances. We have learnt to wait on God in the face of serious challenges and He always comes through for us.

10. Complement each other. Enjoy the benefit of each other’s strength. For example, he has eyes for good and classy things, the shoppers' delight, he is also extremely good with arranging stuff in the bags while travelling. On the other hand, she is gifted as the family book-keeper, accountability officer, domestic affairs manager and intercessor.

11. Teach your children early to love and serve God. As a family, every Sunday for the past 4 years, we lead our 4 awesome children to share tracts around the shopping mall within Lagos. They also take daily family devotion. Their age bracket is between 5 - 14 years.

12. Hold each other accountable for commitment to the marriage and children's discipline. We run a 'no nonsense'and fun-loving structure. Each child has a responsibility that is outside the the domestic support structure. For example, the teenager is the Devotional Pastor and enforcer of rules, the 10-year old is the family cook and chores master, the twinnies are bible-readers and room organisers. This comes in handy when you need to exercise the gift of goodbye to the weird or lazy nanny.

13. Be a Man and Woman of Integrity! Your spouse should be able to beat his/her chest for you anywhere on most issues. It is a good legacy to leave for your generation.

14. Kiss Often, Hold hands Often, Make fun of each other and laugh at each other. Don't take life too seriously.

15. Please take note that it is not every prayer that God answers! But at the end, God's will is revealed beyond your wildest imagination. Why? We prayed for our very sick son 12 years ago, God answered and still took him away. We thought God had failed us but He answered with another son and twin girls 4 years and 7 years after.

16. Be dedicated to each other! Our children know that we do have 'Us time' and they have come to grudgingly accept that their mum and dad come first before them and our anniversary days are for us to be left alone :-)

The Femi-Lawals with their twin girls :-)

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I am sure you loved reading this feature as much as I did! I loved the sincerity of the interview. It was great to read the God-factor clearly evident in their relationship and the practical aspect employed as well! I thank God for the Femi-Lawals and for giving them 16 beautiful years together.. Love is a truly beautiful thing, it takes work but its fruits are immensely rewarding.

Like the couples featured on the Married and Loving It series, God can give you an excellent marriage! It would not be devoid of storms/challenges but with God, you can ride them out together and come out stronger and better.

Once again, immense gratitude to Mr and Mrs Femi-Lawal for being a blessing to us today! Our prayer is that your home will continue to be an example, and inspire others to have faith in marriage, and in the God who made marriage.

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