National Marriage Week

This week is National Marriage Week.  It was established as a way to encourage a healthy view of marriage in our society.  The website about this initiative contains many useful articles, links, and resources.  Check it out.

Communicating with grace

It is so important to have grace-filled communication marriage.  Often quite the opposite is true.  It is much easier to quickly respond to what your spouse said (or what you thought they meant by it) then to try to listen and understand how they feel. 

We often have lofty expectations of the person that our spouse ought to be, but we can be quite blind to our own brokenness.  We all need grace.  We are less than perfect (it's true so just believe it even if you don't see it).  So always communicate with a spirit of grace towards your spouse.  And remember that communication goes way beyond words.  Tone, facial expression, body posture, actions.

A few questions to ask yourself:
Do I assume the best in my spouse or do I often question their decisions or their motives?

Do we often fight or do we find it natural to work through differences?

Do I think that I am more spiritual than my spouse? (The answer to this may be the beginning of your grace problem)

II Peter 3:18 "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ".

The Note

I have found a note to be a powerful way to let your spouse know that you are thinking of them.  Last week, my wife sent me an E-card with a nice note about remembering the day that we got engage 13 years ago.  There are so many ways pass along a few words to your spouse.  Here are a few ideas:

• The traditional card
• An e-card
• Text
• E-mail
• Facebook message
• Post a status update about your love for your spouse
• A note for them to find (pocket, in the car, in the refrigerator)
• Wallpaper on the computer
• Airplane message in the sky
• Billboard
• Flowers always say a lot

Take a minute to let your spouse know that you appreciate them!

Retweet

"Marriages fail because of how right it seems to justify sinful responses to sin."
John Piper- via Twitter

Rules for fighting

One thing that people appreciate during our class was establishing some rules for conflict. Here are a few of the suggestions:

• Don't bring up the past
• Don't go to bed angry
• Stop and listen
• Seek to understand before being understood
• Be willing to take the blame
• Trust the good in your spouse

Ask yourself: "Am I trying to bring peace, or do I want to be heard?"

There will always be conflict in relationships.  Learn to build trust even in your disagreements.

Why Can't My Spouse Say What They Mean?

A little humor

-I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.

-Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.

-Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck. Nathan, age 10.

A grim reminder

A clear image of the tragedy of divorce.  They both got half.

Lord, grant us the grace to be committed "as long as we both shall live".

Money Matters

A man said this his credit card was stolen, but he decied not to report it because the thief was spending less than his wife did.

A lot of frustration in marriage can come from a failure or inability to communicate well about money.  Learning how to be on the same page in relation to finances can be a challenge.  It takes time and energy to talk about these issues, but it must be done.

Ray Ortland says "Usually what wrecks married couples isn't the 'high cost of living', but the 'cost of living high'". 

We are often caught in the cultural trap of buying things that we cannot afford.  We create our own financial trouble by failing to be content.  This frustrates our relationships.  It often stops us from giving. 

Any practical tips for effectively managing money?

Does marriage make you happy?

"Marriage has a better chance of making you holy than making you happy".  

How do feel when you hear that statement? 

I think that most who are married have realized the purifying affect that it has had on their character.  In  Ephesians, Paul talks about part of the husbands role in loving his wife is to lead her towards holiness.  It states "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless".

I have found that if I am loving my wife as I should, that it tends to make me more aware of my own selfishness, pride, and desire for me to be happy.  This does not always make me happy to see these traits in myself.  But the awareness of them allows me to confess them and draw near to God in humility.

I do believe that the more we are pursuing holiness that ultimately we will be happier.  So marriage can be a tool to help us get there if we allow it to.

How have you seen marriage make you more holy?