Marriage is Important

We took part in an amazing marriage conference this past weekend and I’m just bursting at the seams to share some of what we learned. In our culture we don’t hear enough how important marriage is and it’s all too easy to slowly slip away into taking our spouses for granted and waaaay underappreciating the gift God has given us in our mate. I don’t know how I’m going to sum up everything I want to say!

Here are three essentials to a thriving marriage:
(taken from our Weekend to Remember workbooks)

I. The habit of extravagant love
...is reflecting the love of God.
It’s a choice not a feeling.
II. The habit of generous forgiveness
...is offered quickly, applied freely, and expressed graciously.
III. The habit of enthusiastic encouragement
...is openly affirming your spouse (in front of others), avoiding critical words, and maintaining a positive attitude, even in hard times.

One of the main things I took away from the weekend was the powerful encouragement that no matter how “far gone” you think or feel your marriage may be, there is always a chance to turn it around. There’s history there, and it’s always easier to work it out with the person you’re already with than go start from scratch with someone else! J. Paul Getty, one of the first people to be worth more than $1 billion, is quoted as saying, “I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just on lasting marital success.” There’s something unexplainably special about lifelong companionship, and let’s not buy in to our culture’s lie that it’s more fulfilling to move onto something better. Seek out biblically-based advice, make some changes, and hang in there!

One thing I’d totally recommend is re-reciting marriage vows to each other. I was totally skeptical of this at first, but it turned out to be really special! And in a room with over 100 other couples it wouldn’t seem like the most intimate of settings (and in general it was somehow just hard to keep a straight face thinking about how silly we must look staring so *deeply* into each others' eyes)...but it was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for me. The vows mean so much more to me than they did even just over one and a half years ago when we first promised them and it's so fascinating to think how a relationship grows over time.

Let's make it a priority to encourage those around us to develop thriving marriages and not just settle with "living together in isolation from each other." I love the idea that our spouse reflects God's love, forgiveness, encouragement more intensely than anyone else. What a great design God has for us in realizing we need companionship and providing us with such a rich solution!