It is a constant battle in this day and age to preserve, uphold and treasure the design of God in covenant marriage. We are no exception. I am often plagued with doubt and fear in my husband’s provision for us, or in self-centered thoughts of feeling unloved. Take that plank out of your own eye first, dear. We have found we must be active in preserving our marriage for the glory of God. God has designed marriage to be a reflection of His beautiful union between Christ and the church. Marriage has been the number one means of growing in sanctification and maturity in my life! Here are a few practical ways we are actively seeking to grow and cherish our marriage until death do we part….
1. Reading together – We are currently reading our fifth book together thus far this year! We have grown so much, strengthening each other in our faith, by keeping a book in the house and a book in the car to read together. Reading while we drive here and there has been such a valuable way to make the most of the time. We often like to read a quick chapter before we head to bed at night. We like to read a variety of books together (as you can see on my book list), everything from child-training, marriage, Christian living, to finances. Currently, we are reading “When Sinner’s Say ‘I Do‘” by Dave Harvey. An excellent read! We also are reading through the book of Psalms together in the morning and share insights as we go. Reading with my hubby is my favorite activity!
2. Consistent date nights - at the beginning of the year we purposed to schedule in two date nights a month (on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays of the month). Having this on our schedule is a gentle reminder to get away and spend some quality time together. This is so important! With a nursing baby, we can’t get away very long, but even an hour or two is invaluable to just rest and enjoy each other’s company. If you don’t have family in the area, try organizing a babysitting group with other couples. Take turns watching each others kids. One method I heard of doing this was to have four couples, rotating the children from house to house on a weekly basis. Each couple than has three dates per month and one night watching all the kids.
3. Watching sermons together - another one of our favorite activities is to watch sermons together. We take advantage of Mark Driscoll’s sermon video podcast for a wealth of solid Biblical teaching. I have grown tremendously through this practice! We love watching them and then discussing what we learned. This is a great alternative to do in the evenings after the kids go to bed, as we often don’t get to hear a full sermon on Sundays with little ones in tow (as we purpose to keep our little ones with us during the service).
4. Sync your schedules & budget – we have found syncing our schedules and our budget to be one of the best methods of making sure we don’t overlook anything in our communication and household management. We use various tools such as google calendars (which you can set up to share your calendar with another computer, i-pod touch, iphone or handheld devise), and Cha-Ching (an easy money management program for the Mac which can sync up with other computers, i-pods, or iphones). With each purchase or when scheduling an event, I simply enter it into either of these programs and we are both updated. I am blessed to have an iphone (a refurbished special), which has been extremely beneficial for keeping organized in this way, but it can also just be done from computer to computer.
Those are just a few ideas that we have found beneficial for our marriage. I would love to hear your ideas!
Shannon,
You can have date nights @ home w out going anywhere & have a wonderful time! We have many littles in the house, plus no family near by & our church family is 40 min from here. We have a “date night” every Sat here. We put the kids to bed a little earlier & we make either a special dinner or treat…& we talk, go outside, play a game, watch a movie or so on…we enjoy the time together & alone & make the best out of our season. We have friends that live in other states that do the same thing. The season will change when we can go out but we really enjoy our time/date nights here! I look forward to it each week. One of friends that don’t live in the country as we do…gets take out each week for their in home date night. They look forward to that as part of their dates. Our kids know Sat nights are mommy & daddy date nights & I think it teaches & shows them how much we love & care about each other & make time for each other! Friday nights here are family fun night again here…where we have a fun meal & play games as a family!
I’m so glad you found Mark Driscoll! I go to Mars Hill and his teaching has been such an encouragement to my husband and I. His example is great too, the way he loves on Grace and syncs their schedules and all that. I find that we often get so busy it seems like we haven’t seen each other, and we don’t even have kids yet! Thanks for the advice
Thanks for the Google Calendar tip. I just set it up and now my hubby and I will finally be looking at the same calendar on our iphones!
That right there will eliminate lots of little spats about someone not knowing as to what was on the schedule
While we don’t read together much, we do love listening to Driscoll together when the kids are in bed. I have learned so much from him and from other quality preachers via video online!
What is the benefit of keeping your kids with you during church service? Our church has lessons for each age group, including the babies who can sit upright. It’s geared toward their age and activity level and I’ve been working with my 9mo to get her into the nursery! I grew up being in church with my family and can appreciate the togetherness it holds, but frankly there were a lot of time I was bored. I personally think that young kids might get more out of their lessons in the nursery that with mom and dad but want to know why other parents think the opposite.
This is definitely a whole another topic and a liberty garden issue for each family, so I will try to explain how the Lord has lead our family. AS to our family, we hold strongly to having our children in with us during the service. I grew up in a family that made this a priority and it made such a difference in my life. For those things we did not understand, we could talk about it at home afterwards. I grew up observing my parents worship the Lord, honor, and cherish Him. Observing this is contagious. Being together on Sundays (Rather than dispersing in many directions), was one means of keeping our family strong, and what a testimony to so many others around us. I cannot say it was always fun, but I can say that it taught me of the importance of truth and that I can participate no matter my age. I have visited churches who would not allow children in the service, and what do you think that communicated to me? Dislike of children…why should I stay in the church?
I believe that it is so important for my children to observe their parents worshipping the Lord. The OT talks frequently about the Israelites, one and all, young and old, standing before Moses reading the Law. It was important for all ears to hear the full truth of Scripture. We desire for our children to grow up among strong doctrine rather than a watered down version that often comes through Sunday school (I say often because this is not always the case). I believe the statistics that as many as 70-88% of teens leave the church before their first year of college speaks volumes to the fact that children have a hard time adjusting to adult services. There are other factors, but I think this is key. They are used to being entertained in Sunday school and then when time comes for them to sit in adult services, they consider it boring. I love the Scripture in Proverbs that says, ‘Walk with the wise and you will become wise.’ I don’t see this happening in the modern Sunday school movement. The fact is that more and more children are leaving the church. I want to be the primary teacher of my children. An excellent read with further thoughts on this topic is: Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham Jr. Highly recommend it!
Hope that better communicates our stance on this topic. We have just chosen this for our family. God bless!
I appreciate your thoughts on this. How in the world do you manage an active toddler during service?
This is a good topic to address in a future post. I did have a friend share a few thoughts in this post.
Thanks so much for the encouragement to keep putting marriage first. We are expecting our first within a few weeks, and with all the anticipation and preparation as well as the day to day business, I’ve had to keep reminding myself to put my husband right up there under God.
We are so blessed that my husband works where he and I can IM through Skype thoughout the day. I can run things by him, ask him questions, discuss something I heard on the radio (we sometimes listen to Rush together
, and just tell him I love him throughout the day. I love it, and miss is terribly when I’m not able to “talk” to him. I also think it really cuts down on the need to “unload” on him the moment he walks in the door.
I am so blessed!
Thank you for writing about the importance of marriage and that is something to work at to make it better each day. I am so sad by the recent trend that some couples of have of making the wedding the most important part and then when the newness wears off they just walk away. When my hubby and I married we made a promise not only to each other but to God that this marriage would be our priority and we would work and toil and sweat together to make it a happy, and everlasting marriage. I am glad that in the hard times and really hard times it has been a comfort to know that not only is this marriage about two flawed and selfish human beings, but that we have God on our side to help us and strengthen us to work harder and be better.
I think parents, especially parents of young children, tend to forget that the relationship between the husband and wife is THE most important relationship in the home. I have a friend with two small kids my kids’ ages (3 & 1) and recently emailed me to tell me that she was struggling finding the balance between work, wife-stuff, and mom-stuff, and the only one she cared about was the mom-stuff. It made me extremely sad for her, but I could not convince her that her priorities were wrong.
My husband and I have always, purposefully, abided in each other. We are often apart, and he is currently in Afghanistan, but every single day, our relationship gets stronger. We do things now like type prayers out and send them to each other, read the same books (currently it’s Covenant Marriage by Chapman) and sharing sermons with each other (his chaplain is very good.) Every day we grow closer to God, and in turn closer to each other.
I read today that when God said, “I will make him a helper suitable for him…and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:18-24) that the Hebrew word for one is the same word used in Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The word is a unity made up of parts – as the trinity of God. This unity – this oneness, is what marriage is all about.
When a marriage is strong – together, apart, and in God – then you can stand there and take on all of the darts and arrows that get thrown at you and you’ll survive them – with a stronger marriage to speak for it.
(sorry -didn’t mean to hijack your blog)
Great post! One thing that really helps my husband and I is that we know this is not a ’till death do us part’ situation. We’re in it for eternity. We love our kids and give them our all, but we also realize that they will grow up and leave and create their own eternal family units. We know that as we work toward becoming closer to Heavenly Father, we grow closer together. Thank you for your wonderful thoughts.
Hi!
I really loved seeing this post. It is so important that we value and strengthen our marriages. We are currently stationed overseas with the military and have no family to watch our children for a date night. So we have started once a week to have a date night after the kids go to bed. We order food in and we watch a favorite tv show together. Just thought I’d share another way to have date night.
I am currently working on a post about this. I feel very strongly that your marriage needs to come first. Some believe that, some believe their kids come first. The family is not happy if the parents are not happy!! My hubby and I do date nights a lot. Even if the kids are home. We work it out to make time for us! This is a wonderful post!! Thanks!
My heart too has been hit heavily by the increasing portrayal of divorce/adultry in our society. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day household duties and then crash in front of the TV at night but that does nothing to improve or enhance your marriage. We’re trying to sit outside now that it’s warmer after our son goes to bed to actually talk and not just sit beside each other on the couch. I’m blessed to have my parents close by so we do get out on dates and really cherish our alone time together. When I was growing up my parents went away at least twice a year without us kids and it’s helped me see how important it is to keep cultivating your marriage. My husband and I are getting ready to start training to become Pre-martial counselors through our church and we are so excited how God is going to work through us!
Great tips! Thank you
These are great! We’ve tried reading together but my husband reads all day for work so he isn’t really into it for pleasure. We don’t have a lot of time together because he works very long hours. We are in a new town and thankfully I’ve met some great people that we are beginning to trade babysitting with. I miss date nights! Wonderful post!
Here are a few more ideas from my husband and I. (We’ve been married for 9 years and have a 2-and-a-half year old and a 7 month old.)
1. Pray aloud together every night. One night is his turn. The next night it’s mine. We really learn a lot about what is on the other’s heart.
2. Have at-home dates each weekend. Make a special dessert and play 2-person games after the kids go to sleep. We like Boogle, Scrabble, Othello, Mastermind, Blokus, and Set.
3. When we’re in the car for a while, we create what-if scenarios. For instance, I recently asked him what 3 non-relative people he would take with him if he were stranded on a deserted island and why. Then I had to answer.
4. My husband also regularly has me rank how he’s doing as a husband on a scale from 1-10. He wants to know what he can do better and vice versa.
At least these work for us.
Thanks for your blog, Lindsay. Love it!
What great ideas. Our biggest struggle is finding childcare. With an almost 3 year old and a 10 month old we need childcare in order to connect.
The problem is we have no family nearby and no church family yet to speak of. We vaguely know a couple of families from my husband’s work, but not well enough to leave our boys with them. Honestly, it is something that has really been leaving a strain on both of us as well as our marriage.
Great ideas! God was just leading me the past couple of days to post about marriage, so often when we have young children it’s easy to overlook the most important relationship in the home.
What a great post! I just recently found your blog & I love the emphasis on family, God, and creating. My husband & I just took a mim vacation away (it’s been a few years), and it really helped remind us of how much fun we have together. I loved getting all of his attention, which is hard at home with work, school, 3 kids, etc.
For us, keeping a healthy marriage means staying connected- weekly date nights, praying together, downloading about our day after we put the kids down, talking in the car, dreaming out loud about where we want to be, and playing with the kids together. I guess the “together” is what really helps. Even small things like cooking or watching a movie is better when you can hang out with your best friend. We nurture our friendship, and that pours over into everything else.
Do you have any tips for keeping your little ones with you during church service? This is something I’d really like to do, and was doing, but now that my little one is moving and jabbering more, I’ve given in and taken him to the nursery a few times. He likes to move and jabber and I feel bad about distracting those around us. I’d enjoy hearing more of your thoughts on this sometime.
It REALLY, REALLY, REALLY helps to have your child’s full attention (eye-contact and/or at least they’re obviously hearing and understanding you) when you gently tell them to be quiet or sit still. If they disobey, discipline them accordingly (swiftly if they are young and forgetful) and let them know that they are ultimatly being disciplined for DISOBEYING MOMMY. “No matter what it was that mommy asked you to do, you must quickly obey. I asked you to sit still (or be quiet) and you did not obey mommy.”
I pray this helps!
On the other hand, if they cannot yet reason about obedience, you might try re-scheduling their nap time everyday so that they are napping during the service. That works well when they’re younger although some little ones fuss a bit while others fall asleep quietly… Praying for you!
Here’s a suggested book on the topic of worshiping corporately with your young children:
Parenting in the Pew by Robbie Castleman
http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Pew-Guiding-Children-Worship/dp/0830823409/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246023454&sr=8-1
My husband and I just started reading together again, and it has been great! I know that you read a lot but buying books can really add up over time. I’ve tried the library with some luck, but there’s not that great of a selection. I also don’t really know anyone in my area that I could share/trade books with. When I do buy, I use amazon, but even that can get expensive, and I usually don’t read a book more than once which makes me feel guilty for buying it. Do you have any other recommendations on how you “frugalize” this habit?
Have you tried interlibrary loan? You can put in a request even if your library doesn’t have a book and it will arrive for you within a week, usually in a couple of days.
Also, if your church has a library, you could suggest titles you would like to see there…or visit a large church in your area that you know has a library, I’m certain they would lend to you and perhaps you could find some nice thing to do in exchange…
Laura,
If you are looking to “purchase” books (for example, other than loaning library books), http://www.paperbackswap.com is a great site. You list books that you are ready to get rid of and once other people request those books, you receive a credit for the books you send. The only cost involved is shipping your books. The books you request then are shipped to you for free. We just discovered this site earlier this year and it has been a great way to expand our reading selection!
Some libraries allow you to request books that the library will purchase. I called my local library and requested they purchase a book and they did! I’m sure all libraries run differently, and everyone is on a tight budget, but it’s worth a try!
And don’t forget media mail through usps!
Don’t forget Goodwill or other thrift stores. I just bought two “like new” condition books at Goodwill yesterday for a total of $3.50. Total cost at listing prices: over $50. Definitely a great bargain!
We do a lot of these activities too. My husband is currently reading Harry Potter 6 out loud to me, in anticipation of the movie release this summer. We’ve both read it before, but it is so much fun to have him create voices!
We don’t have set date nights yet, but that’s because we don’t have children yet. We do, however, make the time to have quality alone time, whether cooking or baking together (one of our favorite activities), watching a movie on hulu, playing board games, or taking a walk.
I completely agree that syncing schedules and budgets are so important. So many of our parents’ arguments revolve around these issues…we don’t want to be the same way. We also use google calendar to see each our events and appointments. What’s also nice about google calendar is that we can see our schedules at home and at work without any software or HD space; it’s all web-based. In terms of budgeting, we sit down every month and review our shared and separate budgets, which we use via Google Docs (it’s a spreadsheet my computer scientist husband formulated after reading budget books). In fact, if I blogged, I could write an entire post on what the two of us accomplish via google docs.
We share our grocery list, make packing lists, and did much of our wedding planning via google docs…all for free. 
By the way, Lindsay, I use my iphone to take photos of prices and items in the grocery store so I can figure out the unit price and compare it to other stores to figure out where to buy what.
M
There is an app for the iphone called Shopper. You can browse through pre-loaded isles and add your own items. You enter prices and it will break down the unit cost. You can list many different stores, and make shopping lists. If you add the cost to each item, as you add it to your shopping cart, just tap it off your list and it keeps a running total for you. It is a little work at first, but once it is all loaded it is wonderful. Plus you can tell if products have increased in price. The app does have more features and costs only .99!
Yah! I use and love Shopper too! It helps me keep organized throughout the month so I don’t forget anything at the store! I also love how I don’t waste any paper now from writing misc shopping lists.
Wow, thanks! They think of everything these days
Before we go to bed each night, my husband and I take a few minutes to lay next to each other and talk about any worries or concerns or thoughts that are on our minds. Getting things off our chests helps us to sleep better at night.
what a sweet post! indeed, we must be diligent in preserving and nourishing our covenant relationships with our beloveds. i so relate to your comment about feeling “unloved” – just this morning i had a silly overreaction to my dear husband on this very issue. and yet i am so completely secure in his love. a constant focus on the plank in my own eye …
helpful for me/us:
*being mindful to not place undue expectation on my husband for meeting my needs. my eyes need to remain on Christ, the lover of my soul, and out of the abundance of Christ’s love for me, I can pour in to my husband and our marriage!
*we talk, a LOT! it is crucial and the lifeblood of our relationship. we share about our day, our dreams, our hopes, God’s blessings, our plans … everything! we often call it, “visioning” …
*we laugh! we play games as a family, go on walks many nights (more talking!)
* i love to spoil my man! he loves having lunch made for him each morning that he can take to work, so i am glad to make the effort to do this. and it’s fun to tuck treats in sometimes.
* i try to keep perspective … there are seasons in our marriage. for instance, my hubby just finished taking college classes plus working 50hr+ weeks, and we missed him at home! but it helped me to remember that this too shall pass, and it did.
those come to mind today! i’ll keep thinking on this. thanks for your insights. i LOVE your blog!
Thanks for taking the time to write this post. All wonderful ideas and healthy reminders. I hope to more seriously implement some of these ideas in our marriage. Love your site!!!
Wow, so I am not the only one who struggles with stuff like that. Thanks for your post. It is such a struggle. Even with a wonderful spouse, marriage isn’t easy.
Those are some great ideas. Oh and I would love to hear more posts on marriage!
As far as tips I would second the idea of date and during those dates only talking about your children a little. In fact I try to steer clear of that topic during our dates. That way we focus on our marriage.
This is my first post. Thanks for such a great topic. Right now I am reading and doing The Love Dare. I highly recommend it.
We have found for us to have a weekly family meeting is a way to build communication and get some time together. We meet at a local coffee shop and go over budget, meals and such.
Thanks again for all your advice and the way you just put yourself out there.
I think this post is timely and very helpful especially since the demise of the Gosselin marriage. So sad. Marriage is truly under attack by Satan and your tips here are great. One of the things we learned to do after nearly divorcing 6 years ago was to always put each other first above all things except God! Mr. Green Thumb and I put each other above everything and think of each other first. Above kids, above money, above friendships, above activities…you name it. God is our head, then each other next!
NEVER refuse to be intimate. Each of us has needs, in which our spouse has a duty to fulfill. Otherwise the other spouse will wonder away, looking for fulfillment by other means.
Prayer! #1 key in marriage
We try and away on a vacation alone at least once a year, no children! We even did this when the children were little. We call it our once a year honeymoon! We have trusted family and friends to leave the children with.
We read books separately, and then during our time of Bible study we discuss what we have read.
Budget and scheduling is key! I have a calender near our kitchen phone. And I update my hubby’s blackberry often w/update appointments and the life, and vice versa. In our home, we have a running Excel spreadsheet in which we daily put in our spending and what not. We also call each other if we are going to spend over $100 on ONE item, just so the budget is ok.
Great topic! With four kids (ages 2 – 13) and me working full time while my husband is home (thanks to recent job loss – it used to be the other way around), date nights are hard to come by, I don’t want to leave my kids after a long day at work. However, we do find ways to reconnect. Mostly by just stopping at given moments and making eye contact, sharing a kiss or hugging. My kids love this – the younger two shout “Group hug!” when they see us hug (usually in the kitchen) and then we all hug together. Even the teenager will join in, even though he pretends to hate it.
We also make sure to chat in the evening before bed or in bed and very often, even though I am tired and I think “I just want to go to sleep”, I roll over and snuggle up with my husband if even for just a little bit. He usually puts his arm around me and tells me he loves me. And to think – I would miss that special moment if I just let myself go to sleep first!
Whenever tension starts to creep up on us, we both notice it and we usually take steps to reconnect – generally in small, everyday ways that let each other know we love the other. Emptying the dishwasher when you could let it sit, giving my husband the fluffier towel when I put the towels away, stuff like that.
We also email A LOT, as that is one way we can connect even if we are both not available at the same time.
So all of this super long comment is to say that connecting in small everyday ways is the realistic way to keep a marriage going forward, in my humble opinion (married 16 years with four kids).
thank you so much for sharing these ideas! I’m going to share them with my husband. I just found your blog yesterday. You sound like such a lovely woman, and you are so inspiring to me to live my life for the Lord. I feel like I can connect with you alot, because I also stay home, and teach part time piano lessons. Thanks for your encouragement.
lotsa love,
j
It’s great that God led you to write about marriage today! I have been discussing this very topic with many people lately. It seems as though people take is for granted that you are going to even get married when in reality, it’s really difficult to find a Godly, quality mate. It is also sad that many marry already thinking that they may not make it so be prepared “just in case”. Too many people also think that focusing 100% on the children is the way to be amazing parents when truly, focusing more on each other and making your marriage work should come second, your walk with God FIRST and then your kids!