Ramblings of a Christian Father

Welcome to another Married Monday.

Over the past few weeks, things have been very busy with life and work.  That’s the reason for no posts recently.  But it has given my time to really refresh and think about this post.  Reading through posts different places I decided on this weeks title – Save it for your Marriage.

  
We hear this many times leading up to getting married, or while you are just dating.  But outside of keeping certain things until your married, I want to talk about keeping some things inside your marriage.  I’m not talking about being faithful, that is a given.  I’m talking about what we share, what we publish out on social media.

We live in a time that everything we do, we feel the need to let everyone know where we are and what we are doing.  Now don’t get me wrong, social media is great, sharing your love and the things you do together, it’s great, but does it matter.  Are you breaking away from special times to post things, are you breaking away to post just to make people jealous?  Are you posting as a facade?   Why do we feel the need to post about every aspect of our lives?  Now don’t get me wrong, the “I have the greatest wife/husband, because …” post are nice.  But if the only time you are letting your spouse know that you love them or how you feel has come because of your friend’s, sister’s, cousin’s, nephew’s, grandson’s, uncle’s recent post that was re-shared from last month, that’s a problem.  I know I have said this multiple times over the past few months of doing this, but You must continually make an effort to let your spouse know how you feel when no one else is going to know that you told them they are wonderful.  It shouldn’t matter that others know how you feel about each other, as long as you both know.  If you both know and act like it, people are going to know just by seeing you.

  
The other thing that I want to encourage is keeping things private.  Not just if you have a problem, putting the other person on blast online, but have special things that are just for the two of you.  When you can go out on a date.  Find a new restaurant, and never take the kids there, find a new hobby or something that is for just the two of you.  Find something that will bring both of you joy, and keep it for yourselves.   Face it, the moment you take your child to a “fancy” restaurant, it is going to loose its draw for you as a couple, or you will start to feel guilty going there without them with you, maybe.

Take the time to focus on things that just the two of you do.  Maybe it’s 30 minutes that you get together at the gym, maybe it’s 30 minutes that you spend doing devotions together, maybe it’s that specific night per month that you go to a different coffee shop/restaurant, or that one day during the week/month that you meet for lunch.  Make plans for these things, and see them through.  But here comes the hard part, don’t tell anyone about it.  Don’t post it, don’t spend time getting the perfect selfie, save the moment in your minds.  Spend the time tech free, focus on each other, and keep it private.  Have special things that are just for the two of you.

So that is my challenge to you, what can you do that is just the two of you?  Can you go without telling everyone else your business?  See if you can, and see what happens.

 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.