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".