Growing UP! Monday

Growing UP! Monday. It's time to get back into the swing of things! How are you growing? What are you learning?

Ok, I'll go first...

How am I growing? Well, I can tell you this, my marriage is growing. We recently attended A Weekend to Remember marriage conference. It was our gift to one another for our anniversary this year.

I know. I know. Crazy romantic aren't we?

You should have seen the look on my husband's face when I told him that's what I wanted to do. Poor guy. You'd think that after ten marriage conferences (two of them being A Weekend to Remember retreats) he'd put his foot down. Except, I'm married to the sweetest man around, and we both know how beneficial they are for our relationship.

There have been years we've gone with specific issues to be worked on. Each year we drive away and take our marriage-temperature.

Do we spend time alone together? CHECK!

Do we settle conflicts quickly? CHECK!

Do we put our marriage first? CHECK!

Do we pray together? Needs Improvement.

On and on we go, checking off areas we are doing well, and making note of those things we need to work on. This year, we really didn't feel like we needed to go. Everything seemed fine between us. We were actually thinking about skipping it. Especially after discovering our two youngest were chosen to be on all-star soccer teams with their games on the very weekend we'd be gone.

Enter MOM-GUILT.

But, after talking with the kids, they encouraged us to go. They realize after all these years that we are better parents when our relationship is strong.

In the end, we were both grateful we went. I can't wait to share with you all we learned. What a blessing.

For now, I will leave you with this, "A family is only as strong as the marriage within it."

If you've never gone away on a marriage retreat, maybe it's time you did.