Marriage

Marriage. According to Grover, it's when two people get married, and they kiss and hug and live together and help each other. According to God it's when two become one.

Two weeks ago we found out that a couple that was very influential in our lives were calling it quits on their marriage. They are two very Godly people that I've respected for years! They lead in the church they attend. They appeared to have it all together. But they didn't. It really shook Tim and I up. If they can't make it, who can? we thought.

Around the same time, I started working on a video for last night's "The Gathering: Going To The Chapel" event in which married couples in our church sent me a picture of themselves and the number of years they had been married. It was SO encouraging! Picture after picture came in, years of marriage were stacking up, and many of the people included notes like, "I love him more today than I did when we got married 20 years ago!"

Watch it here:

And last night we had our event, it was a really fun and successful night, and I learned a lot! Tim and I hosted a marriage discussion panel with the Hufty's (our new senior pastor and his wife) and the students texted in questions they wanted answered.

One of the best ones was, "How do you get through arguments?" The Hufty's offered several bits of really helpful advice:

• Don't use "You" statements (ie: You did such-and-such! You are mean! You hurt me!). Instead, talk about you feel (ie: I felt hurt when..., I don't understand...., etc)
• Never defend yourself. It's very hard to do, but when you surrender, your spouse will automatically back down simply because you're not fighting back.
• Only get upset about the things that really matter. (This one actually came from Tim, but I really believe it's helpful and wanted to share it, too!) When you get upset about everything, you will quickly lose your spouse's ear because you're always griping about something! We call it "save your get-upset points" because if you raise a stink about everything (and this goes for all areas of life, not just marriage) then no one listens. It's like crying wolf.

Another great question was, "How do you keep God the center of your relationship?" Pastor Tom said, "Not to be cliche, but it's not a task. I want to sound more profound than this, but I love Jesus and I love Rhonda. I want to help Rhonda love Jesus more. She wants to help me love Jesus more." They both talked about always pointing each other back to the Lord and constantly praying for one another. It's also important to keep Christ the center of your own life. If you and your spouse are totally aligned with God and His will, then your marriage will be right on track!

I hope you all found this as helpful as I did! It was a wonderful time and I wish you all could have been there with us! Now eat, drink (diet coke), and be married!

Love,

Gwenny