A happy marriage equals a happy family

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 

Ephesians 5:21-28

Every year, my husband and I farm out the kids, and take off by ourselves for a couple days.  We stay in a hotel, and attend our district's wellness conference.  It's been a great time for us, not only to learn and be in the Word together, but to also take care of our marriage.

Some people may take this as we're having problems in our marriage. It's not that we're having problems, per se. But part of being married is working at it. It doesn't come simple, it doesn't come without a lot of work. And these conferences are part of that.

Two years ago, we had a wonderful speaker on marriage.  He had two wonderful points:

• Our relationship with Christ is interwoven with our relationship with our spouse.
• Our bond in our marriage connects our children to their relationship with Christ. Again, everything is interwoven.

It amazed me to think about the fact that all our relationships are connected. We are in marriage, interwoven with Christ. We procreate, weaving in our children. Our friendships and other relationships with family are woven in with that. Everything is connected, always with the foundation of Christ.

The most important point?  "By stewarding ourselves and our marriages, we are enhancing the mission. We are blessing an entire congregation, and impacting the body of Christ." Powerful, right? Taking this time out--without our children--to learn, to reconnect, to have fun, to be intimate with each other, is integral not only in our relationship, but in our relationships with others. If our marriage suffers, so does our mission with the body of Christ.

I want to urge you, dear readers, to take time with your spouse, whether it is just a date night or a few days away. Take care of that relationship, take time to remember the bond that God has created between the two of you. Our marriage is blessed because of this time, and I personally think that we come back from these weekends stronger, and more able to take on the stress of "normal" life. Because if Mommy and Daddy aren't happy, no one is happy!

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the marriages you have blessed us with.  Help us to honor our spouses and our children by taking care of those marriages.  Remind us to take time with our spouses, to reconnect with them. Thank you for sending your Son, as a wonderful model to how our marriages should be.  In Your name we pray, Amen.