Marriage Matters

We absolutely loved our wedding ceremony.

We loved it because it was really personal.

We loved hand-picking the band from our extraordinarily talented group of friends, and enjoyed them singing our favourite songs – Christian and secular (Cathy entered to the beautiful melody of Ben Fold’s “Luckiest” and we exited/ dance-walked-slightly-awkwardly back down the aisle to Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”.)

We put lots of thought into picking the passage – we wanted the extravagant love of our missional God to be proclaimed – so we picked the Prodigal Son.

We created a slideshow of photos of us growing up together (we grew up in the same church, we met when Cathy was 9 and Scott was 13, and a decade later we got together. It was weird at first after being best friends for so long, but soon felt totally right).

We loved making the ceremony really personal – and were thrilled to invite three close friends, who loved us as individuals, and loved us together, to pray for our marriage.

One of the things that was prayed for us, was that one day we would be blessed with children.

It was a great prayer.

Although at the time we wondered it it was a little premature. A little presumptuous perhaps? After all, this is only our wedding day. The very first day of our married journey together.

Having been blessed by God with children three years into marriage, however, we realise that it was a great prayer.

Why? Because children are not a right, we aren’t promised them and we don’t deserve them.

When you look down at those red lines on the pregnancy test, or you inhale the smell of your sleeping baby as they lie on your chest (oxytocin overload, yes?), or as you watch them take their first wobbly steps… not to mention all the innumerable milestones, moments of connection and belly laughs to follow that… you just know that children are a gracious blessing from the hand of a loving heavenly father. He enjoyed creating and parenting his own children, and he wanted us to experience the same thing. Mind-blowing.

So we know that children are a blessing. We know that it’s a big deal to be entrusted with shepherding a child’s heart. We know that having a full nest is a nest full of fun, full of activity and full of staggering potential.

But here’s the thing:

Children are a blessing but they won’t always be physically present.

One day you (and we) will have an empty nest.

The bedrooms will be tidy. The bank balance will increase. And the house will be quiet.

The nest will be empty.

But actually, it won’t. It won’t be completely empty, because hopefully your spouse will still be there.

Marriage matters because it will go on. It will outlive your years of having children at home. Marriage matters because done rightly (with plenty of Holy-Spirit assistance!) it is permanent.

Do you remember saying these words on your wedding day?

“to have and to hold
from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part”

You vowed to a life-long, committed and loving relationship, until one of you dies or Jesus returns.

It puts things in perspective doesn’t it?

Life with children gets busy, messy, noisy, distracting, overwhelming and worrying! But we mustn’t let our children – for all their wonderfulness and all their needs, become the sole focus and sole object of our marriages.

Because when the nest is empty what will keep that marriage healthy, strong and together?

So here are some practical things to think about for investing in your marriage now – right in the midst of this busy season of parenting.

1. Enjoy each other. Reflect on your story together, including life pre-children. Remember who you were as individuals (before you were known as “Mum” and “Dad”). Your children will find you more interesting, as will your spouse, who was attracted to that person – with all their interests and opinions. And ultimately it’s an important part of who God created you to be.
2. Make time regularly to do the above. For more inspiration on this topic click through to read our post all about date nights. 
3. Do ministry that isn’t only about your children. Have other couples or individuals round for food and ask intentional questions about how they are getting on in their faith. This is a great way to serve together as a couple and to remember who life is all about anyway (Jesus!).

Ultimately we need to let God be God and let him set the priorities for our lives.

He says that loving and serving him is our top priority. But part of how we do that is by loving his people (the church), loving our families and loving the lost.

So children will be important focus of our marriages, but they should never become the ultimate thing that we live for. Looking at the condition of our marriages may be a good indicator at whether we’re keeping God’s priorities in our lives or not.

Now there’s a real possibility here that this post could cause some feelings of condemnation. Perhaps your marriage isn’t in great shape. Perhaps your children have already flown the nest and you keenly feel the challenge of trying to reinvigorate your marriage. Perhaps your marriage has broken down.

Well what we always want to do here on Gospel-Centred Parenting is remember the extraordinary freedom, joy and hope that comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If you believe that Jesus died so that you can be forgiven, and rose from the dead to give you the hope of eternal life then this is what God says to you, right now, whatever situation you find yourself in:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

Romans 8:1-2

What good news indeed!

So whatever situation you are in, revel, steep and bask in that glorious good news. And if you’re in a position to do so, do it with your spouse and together, empowered by the Spirit, work at deepening and enjoying this life-long relationship that the Lord has given you.

Life is busy. Time is short. Everyone is exhausted.

Having children around all day (and night?) is a joy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exhausting. When you add to this other responsibilities – keeping the house (vaguely) tidy, being out one or two or three(!) evenings a week for church, time spent with wider family and friends, work, time to just veg… the list goes on… all of this adds up to a recipe for tiredness.

So when it comes to date night, we can all too easily resort to “sit in front of the telly in the same room as our spouse night” rather than anything more meaningful. Or even worse, they become the night of getting those annoying little jobs done, and our spouse just happens to be in our vicinity doing little jobs too. Who says romance isn’t dead?

But our marriages matter in our parenting – a healthy marriage is a strong foundation on which we can build a healthy family. There are lots of things to consider when we think about building and maintaining a healthy marriage – in this blog post we want to consider how a date night can be an important brick in the building of our marriage.

It seems to us that date nights have increased in popularity in recent years. We don’t remember them really being talked about a decade ago… but we weren’t married then so may not have been paying attention. Not that it’s a bad thing – date nights can be great for marriages.

But busyness and tiredness can result in the death of date night at worst, or for many of us date nights are in critical condition.

This is certainly true for the two of us. Before we had children date night was thoughtful and intentional. Now, it’s usually not. But we want to do something about it. We’re not condemned for our poor date nights – they neither add to nor take anything away from our salvation and Jesus can work in our marriage without date nights. But we think that date nights are a wise tool in the belt of maintaining our marriage.

Why?

A good date night can serve as a calm sea in the middle of a stormy week.

It can be a pause for breath in the middle of the breathless sprint of life.

Date nights give married couples the opportunity to take stock – to properly talk and listen. They enable you to address any issues that you’ve not been properly able to address in the busyness of life. On date night you can refocus on your values and priorities in life and see how you’re doing. And, more than that, you can just enjoy each other. You can look into one another’s eyes without the distraction of a thousand other things averting your gaze.

So here are three practical suggestions for creating date nights that serve your marriage.

Switch off

We’re all guilty of it. We’re in the middle of what’s supposed to be time spent together, and then there’s a little tinkle from our mobile. We can’t help but check – who’s getting in touch? What’s happening in the world? Nothing wrecks the mood quite like it. Once you’ve opened pandora’s box, you want to then have a quick check of your emails… and see what’s happening on Facebook…. and see who’s tweeting…. and – well you get the idea.

The reality is that there’s probably nothing happening that needs to be dealt with right now. There’s nothing that’s so important that it can’t wait a few hours. So switch off. Or at least put your phone to other side of the room so you won’t be tempted to keep checking. Be in the moment, and the moment will be all the sweeter. Give your spouse your attention for this one evening a week – the investment will be worthwhile, and you’ll probably find the break refreshing too.

Do something special

Don’t let date night revert to sit-in-front-of-the-TV night. Try to do something special that will mean you’re spending time interacting together, not just being in the same room as one another.

Special doesn’t have to be expensive. Eat dinner together but dim the lighting, light a few candles, put on some music that’s significant to your relationship and have a glass of wine. Or a hot chocolate with all the trimmings.

Or get a babysitter if you can and do something nice out. That could be something that’s a treat – have dinner; get a cocktail; book into a hotel for the night; go bowling; go dancing; take a pottery-making class; sing karoake. Or go out and do something free – go for a walk; find a secluded spot to watch the sunset; build a den in the woods and have a picnic; go for a bike ride.

Try to do things that will enable you to chat.

Be intentional in your conversation

If you or your spouse aren’t natural conversationalists, be intentional in your conversation. Think before about some topics that you would like to talk about.

Consider what areas of your life you’re finding hard at the moment and decide to figure out the path forward.

Think of a special memory and recount it together – the story of your relationship is a vital part of it’s identity, so take time to re-live it together and celebrate who you are.

Or maybe dream together – think about what you’d like for an aspect of your family – your family’s spiritual life, your financial circumstances, your holiday plans, your characters. Dream together about what you’d like from these areas in 1, 5, 10, 25 years. Think about how you’re going to get there. Pray together about it.

So there we have it. We hope you can see that if we committed to nurturing our relationships through a weekly date night, our marriages could be stronger and our parenting would reap the benefit.

What do you think? Why not share this with your spouse and chat about whether it’s something you could implement, or even take ideas from to strengthen your relationship?

A footnote: We’re careful with this blog to try to make everything gospel-centred. That’s not explicit in this post, but read our introduction to this series to see why think keeping our marriages healthy is important to building gospel-centred parenting. This post very much ties in with that goal.

If you found this helpful we’d love it if you shared it with your friends. Sharing is caring after all!