Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Preparing Your Marriage For 2011

Today we are going to talk about preparing our marriage for 2011.  Another blog I read recently asked us to describe our marriage in one word.  What word would you use?  Frustrating?  Stressful?  Existing?  Loving?  Passionate?

Thinking back over 2010, what was your marriage like?  Did you and your spouse date?  Did you pray for your spouse each day?  Our marriages are so important.  When we said "I do" we made a firm commitment to stay with that person for the rest of our lives. I have been to many weddings and the vows are always the same...till death do us part.  I have never heard the vows say for the next eleven months or for the next eight years.  It is till death do us part.  I do not want to spend the rest of my earth living days only existing with my husband.  I want my marriage to be a beautiful thing.  I want my husband to know how deeply I love him and I want to know how he loves me.  I want laughter not yelling.  I want hugs not slamming doors.

I also want you to think about this.  The marriage you have will be the marriage your kids see and are likely to model.  Do you want your children to grow up, get married and fight every day?  Do you want your son to see that it is okay to talk down to your wife?  Do you want your daughter to think it is normal to go to bed crying every night?  Or do you want your children to have loving, kind, and Godly marriages? 

Suggestions for today:
  1. Pray and ask God how you can change your marriage for the better.  If possible, do this prayer with your spouse.
  2. Go through your 2011 calendar and mark a date night once a month.  Make this a date that can not be changed (other than for an emergency).  If you are like us, we can not always afford to go out and do something and pay for child care.  Try this.  Find another family and swap out free babysitting.  Take their kids one night a month for free and have them return the favor.  This gives both couples a night out without having to worry about child care.  If money is still tight, try taking a walk in the park.  Once the kids are gone to the sitter, go back home.  Turn off the lights and light the candles.  Cook dinner together then eat over candle light.  Lay on the couch and watch a movie or play a board game.  There are many free or inexpensive ways to date.  Get creative!
  3. Pray for your spouse every single day.  Also pray that God would help you to be the kind of wife/husband you need to be.
  4. When your spouse comes home from work each day, greet him at the door with a smile and kind word.  If you are the one coming home, leave the troubles from work and frustrations from traffic outside the door.  Walk in and give your wife a hug and kind word.  See what difference this makes!
  5. Make a point to say I love you every day.  Not love you, but I love you.  Personalize it and mean it. 
  6. Kiss your spouse like you mean it, every day. 
  7. Try doing devotions together.  Maybe time does not permit for every day, but try doing once a week.  When the kids go to bed, pull out the Bible and read a verse or two together and pray together.
  8. Throughout the day remind your spouse of your love.  Leave a note where they will see it, send a text saying I love you, buy a package of heart stickers and leave them in places they will see.  Think of ways to show them all day long that you love them.
Make your marriage count.  Make it a priority.  Let your husband/wife know how much they mean to you.  Fall in love all over again.  Let your kids, family and friends see that you love your spouse.

Sweet Blessings~

12 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the ideas, I think when you've been married for a while aka 5 years like us you kinda start taking your spouse for granted, it's good to rekindle that fire so it's buring with God's help instead of on your own strength. These are such good ideas and you can bet I will be putting them in to action. Have a blessed day sweet sister!

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  2. What a wonderful blog, so full of ideas to help us make sure our spouse knows we love them. I love the dating part, a few years back we use to do that and it was always so much fun. Thanks and blessings to you.

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  3. It's been said that the best thing a father can do for his kids is love their mother!

    In this world today, it's always me, me, me! It's so important to remember others. J-O-Y: Jesus-Others-Yourself. That's the best way to keep the joy of the Lord.

    Marriages today are throw-away. The marriage vows never changed to say, I'll love you 'till tomorrow.' Purpose-Dating your spouse is very important in keeping your marriage sound!

    Thank you for this post.

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  4. This post is full of great ideas and I want to try some of them. At the end of 2011 I want to say my marriage is stronger than it is today.
    Thanks for this post.

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  5. It's been a rough year for us with my husbands job and it's not going to let up any time soon unfortunately. I'd label it as "frustrating" right off, but upon further thought a better description would be "growing"... a bit painfully... but we are growing and I never forget that God is stretching us in a way that is necessary to make us better. Broken into beautiful. I dream about our marriage when it gets to the place that we are past all of this hard stuff and just loving each other because God brought us through. Thank you for the wonderful ideas I am printing them out and taking them to my prayer time!

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  6. Heidi, I love that word...growing. Very good. We all go through those hard times but we can learn and grow from them.

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  7. What a wonderful topic, and blog you have today Jenifer! I have to admit, this is one area in which I am truly Blessed. Not wanting to sound boastful, but Shannon and I have a wonderful, loving marriage. Like all couples, we certainly have disagreements and trials but throughout all of them, we've gotten stronger and happier over the 15+ years we've been married.

    Your list of suggestions is wonderful, and we do a number of those things each day ourselves. We're very much proponents of "Date Night", and I'm also a big fan of sending daily reminders to Shannon over the course of the day to let her know I'm thinking of her.

    Thank you so much for this post, and have a Blessed Day!

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  8. Thanks for visiting my blog. I am so glad you did, because now I know about yours and it looks like it is going to be a blessing!!!

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  9. Phil, that is wonderful! Your marriage to Shannon sounds very blessed. What a testimony to your boys!

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  10. Hi Jenifer,
    Your blog is so inspiring, you made some great points today...wow! Thanks so much, I will be visiting more often, because I am going to put you on my blog roll and those are the ones that I see every time I go to my computer. Thanks dear lady for today's very important thoughts.
    Hugs, Cindy

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  11. Thank you Cindy. I love going to your blog. You have such beautiful pictures. Blessings.

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