Dancing in the Kitchen: I Won't Give Up

First off let me make this clear...I do not have a perfect marriage. We lean on God alot for His constant help, guidance, patience and wisdom. We make mistakes, and learn from them.

My hope in this post is that we can learn from one another and encourage each other about strengthening our marriages. I hope you will join me.

My husband Ryan and I were married on a hot summer day June 17, 2000 up on my Father's ranch that I grew up on. We went to pre-marriage counseling by the Pastor who married us. In that 1st year of marriage I could say that there is one very important part that often times gets left of pre-marriage counseling which is...

marriage takes constant work...

Alot of work. The question should be presented- "Are you willing to work the rest of your life for your marriage"

If we want our marriages to thrive than we need to be willing to work for it.

It's now been 12 years since Ryan and I said "I Do". This photo of the two of us was taken 2 years ago. Over the 12 years of marriage we've had good times, tough times and really hard times. But one thing we both understood from the beginning was that we would never give up on our marriage. Now that we have kids, that holds true even more.

I saw this sign on Pinterest earlier today. I wasn't going to post anything else for today as I had already put up the prayer request and video about my good friend Rhonda. But God pulled at my heart for some reason to write this post today. Maybe God intended it to encourage one of you reading this post. I don't know but I will trust in His timing and reason.

This sign is so true, especially when it comes to our marriages. Satan is really good about putting all sorts of temptations right in our path. He knows a perfect opportunity when he sees one and he will jump on it like there's no tomorrow. So it's up to us to make sure we are watering our own grass to make is green!

So here's my list that I find important in my own marriage.

We must be in prayer for our husband! If you are not quite sure how or what exactly to pray. Here is a wonderful example from "See Jamie Blog" that you can print out. Click HERE to take you directly to that page.
Priorities: God...our husband...our children. When our first child was born, those first couple of months were the toughest on our marriage. We were trying to figure out this whole parenting thing, I was nursing and had a baby attached to me just about every hour out of the day. Marriage was placed on the back burner. My main priority was our son. I will never forget standing in our hall way having a disagreement with my husband. Both of us running low on sleep and patience and my husband said... "I just want my wife back"... That moment has stayed with me... As wives if we want to teach our children about love and respect then we have to teach them through our examples. Examples of what it means to love, respect and honor their Daddy. And in return our husbands will show our sons and daugthers how a woman should be treated.
We have to LAUGH! Laughter is the best medicine for any type of prescription. We have to be able to laugh with our spouse! It is ok to be silly with your spouse, especially in front of your kids! If you can't remember the last time you almost peed your pants from laughing so hard with your husband then you are due!!!! And that leads us to the next one...
Date your Husband It is so important to take time to date your husband! There is no excuse not to have a date night. If you don't have enough money in your budget to pay for a sitter for a couple of hours then you need to figure out what can be cut out of your spending! Maybe instead of going through Cruz thru Car wash every week you can wash your own car. That will pay for atleast 4 hours of babysitting! We can find an excuse for just about anything, but if we really want to make something happen we can find a way. One of my favorite websites is "The Dating Divas". There are tons of ideas for putting some spark back into dating your husband. They have ideas for date nights out, date nights in, date nights on a budget, the list goes on.... They even have ideas for "15 Date Ideas ready in 15 minutes or less!" So let's just say NO MORE EXCUSES to have date nights!

How about 18 Movie Date Nights with Movies from....

Grown Ups to Ghostbusters

There's bound to be something you can find!

CLICK HERE

to visit "The Dating Divas" site! Once you choose your movie click on the title and they have tons of ideas and free printables to make your Date Night a hit!