Welcome back to another Married Monday.  This week I decided to go a little different.  Up to this point, I have kept it about just being a couple.  But for most of us, at some point after marriage comes, kids.  Let’s face it, we all have families, and they are always there.  We grow up and build our own families.

We build our families as we grow as a couple.  We are an example to our children, we show them what a family is.  We hopefully show them a strong happy marriage.  Your relationship is what will show through as you raise your family.

As much as I have talked about making time to be there for each other, we must make true time for Family.  In America, we see so much of a decay in the value of the family, the family gets bogged down with the stuff of life.  We have to go to this practice, and this appointment.  We have to go here and there.  At the end of the day we have only a few hours or maybe even minutes together as a family.

Find ways to do more together as a family.  Don’t rely on the annual summer vacation, or spring break, to be your only time devoted to each other.  I’m writing this after spending just a normal weekend at home, but some stuff that I wanted to do didn’t happen, and it was a blessing.  Having the time to spend with the wife and the munchkin, that I didn’t expect to get, was the highlight of the weekend.

So I want to challenge all of you, beyond spending time just with each other, and building your relationship as a couple, keep up with your family.  It’s easy to focus on one or the other.  It’s easy to concentrate on just family, it’s easy to focus on just your relationship.  It takes work to balance both.  It takes work to balance, a relationship, a family, a job, a career, a social life.  When you step back at the end of the day, and look at what is most important, I hope that you make the right choices.