So here we are in 1974, very young and in love.  If you had asked me what a good marriage was at that point in my life, I probably would have said something like, “Being committed to love each other, to staying together the rest of your life, and not fighting too much.”  Not real deep, but I told you we were young.

Ten years later, at the Marriage Seminar I told you about last week, we learned so many things that it almost seemed like a new beginning.  Not that things had been that bad.

I had just never thought about what would make a GREAT marriage, or made it my goal to achieve such a high standard.

We learned about intimacy.  We learned about the importance of understanding what was going on inside our hearts and minds, how to share that in a health way, and how to listen better to each other.  We learn how to resolve conflicts and to make decisions that we both felt good about.

All of this led us to a session where we were challenged to each spend an hour writing a letter to each other about “Why I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And then we stood in front of everyone and renewed our wedding vows.  This time our
vows had so much more depth.  We had years of doing life together, and now we had new understanding of what could make a great marriage.  With deep emotion and many tears we both expressed a new level of commitment.  Not just to stay together, but to be committed to continually working at having a better and better marriage.  What a joy to have a marriage that gets better ever year.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL FOR YOUR MARRIAGE?

WHAT KINDS OF THINGS COULD YOU DO THIS YEAR TO MAKE SURE YOUR MARRIAGE CONTINUES TO GET BETTER AND BETTER?