I remember in our early days of marriage we would spend ALL our time doing pretty much whatever we wanted to do. Date nights, movies, candlelite dinners, weekend getaways, we backpacked through Europe for 6 weeks, travelled to the States on several occassions as I was finishing up my degree, we were spontaneous and free! Then the Lord brought us into the season on being parents……

After we had our first child life wasn’t that different, our son was kind of like an accessory that we took with us wherever we went. But then we had another and another, and now with 3 children the dynamics of our home have drastically changed! The dynamics of our relationship have changed as well and I have learned alot over the past 4 1/2 years with having children.

I have realized that not only am I called to serve my children but even more importantly I am called to serve my husband. To love him and nurture him as well. As a mommy I can get overwhelmed and consumed with the immediate and urgent needs of my kids and sometimes overlook my poor hubby:( He is so gracious and kind, not demanding of his own needs but continuing to give and serve our family. He is an amazing provider. He works harder than any man I know.

We, as wives, need to recognize that, just like our children, our husbands have emotionaly and physical needs that we need to tend to. We need to make our husbands a priority. It is pretty easy to continue to take care of our kids and households and neglect our husbands. However when we do this, they suffer, we suffer and eventually our kids will suffer. I believe that if we do not make time for each other we can put a wedge in our relationship and eventually we can grow apart. How sad would it be to get to the end of our lives and realize that we grew apart in the midst of a life that we both wanted? I am challenged to remember that the Lord is first priority in my life, second is my husband and third are my children.

Do you know your husbands love language? When we did premarital counseling before our wedding we read a book together called the 5 Love Languages (www.5lovelanguages.com), it helped us to overstand how we give and receive love, I challenge you to read it together! It has taught me how to express my love to my husband in a way that he can understand and receive.

Jim and I have been challenged to make our relationship a priority. We have learned that the only way we can do this is to plan for it! We have intentionally put things in place to make sure that this happens. Here is a list of a couple things we do to safeguard our relationship and invest our time wisely.

1. We have a date night twice a month, no kids allowed, just the two of us. (Minimum of 2 hours away – sometimes I bring the baby because she is still nursing but she usually sleeps)

2. We put our kids to bed at 8:30pm every night so that we have a couple hours to talk and spend together before we go to bed. We try to read together or talk about our days. (If you don’t have kids you might think establishing a bed time is not necessary, let me tell you from experience, IT IS!)

3. We have chosen to spend one night a week playing a board game together, rather than watching the TV, interacting on some type of social media, or reponding to emails.It helps us to engage, laugh and connect on a lighter level. (Remember TV can be a time stealer, you can both sit in front of the TV for hours and not even talk to each other!)

4. We have 15 minute talk time. Either before or after dinner we tell our kids that mommy and daddy need uninterrupted talk time and we spend this time catching up on our daily events, its nice to have eachothers undivided attention, it ends up feeling longer than 15 minutes:)

Marriages are the foundation of our families. If the foundation crumbles the whole house will fall. I encourage you to build a strong foundation and continue to build it as your household grows. A house is only as strong as its foundation! Take the time, it’s well worth your investment!

May we ALL honor the Lord with our marriages today!!