4.02.2010

A Weekend To Remember

It's taken me a to week fully process our experience at Family Life's "A Weekend To Remember" marriage conference. My husband and I stumbled upon this conference via a google search which now seems so strange because Family Life is HUGE and the conferences are too. We had a long heart to heart one night and realized we had made a lot of withdraws and not enough deposits in our marriage. We were more best friends and parents than a married couple. I think one of the things that I did not plan on with parenthood was how easy it was to be in survival mode and forget each other.

Last weekend we had the irreplaceable opportunity to re-accept each other as God's gift. We were knocked upside the head and reminded that, second to our relationships with God, our spouse is our main priority. Gasp! Not Declan, not work, not chores, nothing. Mark is my priority. The greatest gift we could give Declan is a thriving marriage relationship displayed before him. The other thing that was made clear (and moreso to us than ever before) was that it's impossible to have a perfect marriage. A good marriage is swimming upstream against the world's current. A good marriage takes effort to continually re-connect, re-hash, re-commit.

On Sunday we had the opportunity to renew our vows. [I had always previously thought vow renewal was a bit cheesy, not for us. I respect other's reasons for doing so, but it was our style]. Little did I know just what those vows would mean once re-spoken nearly 7 years later. I bawled my way through each word.

In sickness and in health.  
In rich and in poorer
In good times and in bad.
I will love, honor and cherish you. All the days of my life. 

I'm thankful for fresh breath in our already blessed lives. And I pray to never be too proud to admit a tune up is nothing to be ashamed of. 



7 comments:

Bri said...

kudos to you guys! Sounds like it was worthwhile!

Simply Complex said...

Good post Ashley!

I agree that the wee little ones seem to make it even easier to lose sight of the fact that marriage is about the adults. My husband and I just discussed this last night- and vowed to reconnect and refocus. Congrats to you on the renewal of your commitment. Hard work always pays off.

Julie said...

Thanks for the reminder Ashley!

Melba said...

I think I needed to read this today. Thanks for sharing your experiences, and the link! :)

I'm so glad you had such a great weekend!

Melba

Sarah M said...

way to go! I think all couples need a refresher once in awhile (ESPECIALLy once they have kids). I can often tell when we need some time when it feels like we become "business partners" and divvy out the responsibilities of everyday life, instead of actually investing in each other.
Glad you had a good time!
Sarah M

Holly said...

Awesome reminder and I agree with it all.

Rebekah said...

Love this. I know exactly what you mean. We were so focused on being parents that we didn't prepare for what that truly would mean for our relationship.

I'm so glad you had the opportunity to do this. I can imagine how emotional the vows would be this time around. Such a neat idea!