The Marriage Challenge

Sometimes in life you get an idea and it just will not leave your mind. Ever have a thought or idea like that? Well for me this thought began earlier this year. Back in January it really hit me that this year my man and I will be celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary. How has the time gone by so quickly?! I mean, I am reminded every anniversary that the time is flying by but to be coming up on ten years of marriage together just feels like a huge milestone to me.

My original thought/question to myself was something like this- What more can I be doing to help make our marriage the strongest it ever been this year?   Every few days or so the thought would hit me again. Well after church today I was washing some dishes, listening to country music and I just had to do something more with this thought of mine. You see, as I was scrubbing away the grease on a white serving platter a song came on the radio and it immediately took me back to the days when Matthew and I were dating.Funny how music will do that. One moment you are scrubbing dishes and the next you are driving down the road, holding hands with your boyfriend and singing away to Mark Wills :). Thinking back to a time when every red light was a good time to kiss each other,deep conversations were much more frequent and all I could think about was the next time I would see him. 

So here I am sharing my thoughts with you to not only encourage and challenge you to be pouring into your marriage but to also hold one another accountable as well. I realize some of us are in marriages that are doing well, others of us might be in marriages that are struggling and others of us might just be on autopilot, not really doing badly but not flourishing either. Take a moment to think about how you and your spouse are doing as a couple. Can you both be completely honest and vulnerable with each other? Do you look for ways to encourage your spouse to know Jesus more? Do you still enjoy spending time with each other or do you find ways to avoid one another?

Some challenges will focus on the spiritual aspect of marriage and others will focus more on the practical things we can each do to love each other well. In all things our mission and focus will be on loving our spouse the way Scripture encourages us to. We can only learn to love well by following in the footsteps of The One who IS Love. Jesus Christ! 

So my challenge for this week is to take at least 5 minutes each day to read and study 
1 Corinthians 13:4-7. There are 14 things mentioned that love does. I suggest reading through this passage each day and then taking more time to study two of the actions of love. 

Thanks for reading and coming along on this adventure with me! My hope is to put up a new post each Sunday!