Marraige Retreat Weekend

A year ago, My wife and I attended a Marriage retreat weekend through our church.   The theme was Gary Chapman's The 5 Languages of Love.  A great book and conversation piece.  If you just read the book, the insight you would gain is enormous.  If you read the book and actually put into practice the principles contained within, the results could very well improve your love life and relationship to levels you never thought possible.

Two weekends ago, We attended another marriage weekend.  This one was about intimacy, and communication.  I wasn't really sure what to expect on this one, and as always when you attend a church weekend, you always worry about if its going to be all about the power of prayer in your marriage.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in the power of prayer, but you also have to work at the prayer to make it come true.   You can pray to be wealthy all you want, but if your don't change your income, and spending habits, its not going to happen.  God helps those, who help themselves.  So the seminar started out with a wonderful video of communication.  It's always eye opening to me to see your issues and glitches portrayed by someone who has never met you, doesn't know you, and is presenting information to a large group.  Its very similar to the feeling you get when the Pastor or Priest at your church talks about a issue during his sermon, and you feel like he\she is zeroing in on you.  As the weekend progressed, my wife and I, Maryann, determined to put the work in required to get the maximum effect back, bared our souls, opened up our hearts and really poured out our feelings, good and bad to each other.    What we found out at the end of the weekend was, we're pretty good together.  Our Marriage is on a pretty good foundation.  We have a strong belief in Christ as our savior, and because of that, we have a very strong commitment to each other.  One of the facilitators, told a personal experience ,that at a very young age, when her children had witnessed them arguing , sat them down and said, We're never going to call it quits no matter how bad it gets.    Great advice and I wish I had heard that advice when I was younger.   My wife and I have had our troubles, and there were times when we both felt that might be the right answer.  I thank God that we never took that step.  It might be the right step for others, but never for us.   

At the end of the weekend, we were exhausted and really re-connected.  The one thing that stuck with us, was Marriage is work, hard work.  But then again... isn't everything that's worth having, worth working for?