If you are a married woman, I have a question for you: do you and your man do anything strategic to enhance your marriage? Do you have a regularly planned date night or do you try to take a trip together without the children on occasion?
Several months ago, Jerry and I were invited to come on the “Love Like You Mean It” cruise (link). It’s a ministry of Family Life with Dennis Rainey. Maybe you listen to him on the radio and you are aware of the emphasis that this ministry places on nurturing family relationship. Each year they have a cruise that focuses on marriage. Speakers teach on subjects related to the topic in a setting that is conducive to re-igniting the flame of passion. We were so thrilled to get an invitation from this ministry to spend a week with them aboard a cruise ship filled with other married folk just like us who wanted to take time to nurture their relationship.Frankly, Jerry and I needed this. We’ve been looking forward to some “us” time because, try as we might, our best efforts at maintaining date nights and couple’s devotions often gets overlooked. We have good intentions but “us” is very frequently shoved to the bottom of the long list of other needs that seem to be more pressing, urgent and necessary at the moment.The result – we lose a bit of our friendship and closeness, opting rather to just share schedules and duties. This isn’t the way either of us want our marriage to be so we refuse to stand by and watch mundane-ness creep up on us.Too bad, opportunities to take a cruise with a marriage focus don’t come once a month. 🙂 But we’ve gotta get better at focusing on each other even still. Making time has got to be just as important as the children’s needs and our own personal needs. . otherwise we’ll be “me” and “him” instead of the “us” we were given to each other to be.Do you ever find this happening in your relationship?Let’s share some creative ideas today. What do you and your husband do to stay connected with each other?Priscilla
