Marriage, Balance, Priorities

What do you all do to keep your marriages refreshed, new, rejuvenated!?

date night? weekend retreats? gifts? read books together? set goals together?

We are constantly working our marriage. We want it to last for eternity.. but we don't just want it to LAST...we want it to be successful and the best it can be! We want it to be EXCELLENT not just good. We have a higher standard than just simple staying together forever. We want to be great examples for others! We know that statistically 6 out of 10 of our friends will get divorced.. we don't want those stats to be true for people around us!

But YES marriage IS hard! Very hard sometimes. It's the most challenging yet most rewarding relationship you can have this side of heaven.

Before we were married, we had SOO much time together because I was in college and so I had a lot of time to pour into us....but then my life did a complete 180!! We had a LOT of changes in a VERY short amount of time! I went from a single college student to a graduate with a full time job, married and then pregnant within 4 months!!

Raymond was not planned by us only by God... and when I found out I was pregnant I was shocked, excited, thrown for a loop, scared! Kids were not even in our mind to tell you the truth, we were totally content just being 'us'. We were soo happy to finally be married and just start our life together. I don't know why God trusted us with Raymond... but I can say now that Raymond was the best thing to happen to me/us. But we really didn't have any time to prepare how we would do things... what goals we would have. A game plan. We hadn't even had time to work on our marriage yet and already our family was growing! And to tell you the truth we need to work on a lot of things that we have let slide during all this transitional time.

Our life was so much more simple pre-Raymond... now it's WAY better but a lot more complex! :) I personally have more time now than I ever have in my life.... but we have a lot less time together. I don't think God intended us to live this way. Husband working 40+ hours a week spending more time with his coworkers than his wife. I just don't believe that's the way it should be... and I think most of my generation feels that in their gut too. I just don't like the lifestyle that the traditional job/career path offers. Brandon and I have been around too many successful entrepreneurs to do this job thing too much longer. We are looking forward to doing something together and spending a lot more time together!! So I'll keep you posted on that!

Anyway... I don't know where I was going with this post.. just expressing some thoughts! :) So my point is... we are going to take a date night this weekend and hopefully plan out some goals we have and changes we need to make in our household.

So reminder of the day: Periodically reflect on how your life is going and make changes to get your priorities in order and life organized. Don't let your lives be so much of a whirlwind you miss it... marriage must remain a top priority in your household. A healthy marriage is the best thing you can do for your kids... so don't ever neglect it. It all starts with your daily habits!

I hope your time, daily habits, and energy reflect where your treasures and priorities are. And most importantly....make sure to give to God first: your time, tithes and talents... everything you have is His anyway. If you do so, He will bless you in all other areas of your life.