It's hard to let my anniversary go by without saying something about it. Yesterday was 31 years with Mark. 31 years of ups and downs. Somewhere in there was lots of wondering if we could really make it, but lately it's jut been lots of gratitude that we stayed the course. This year we celebrated simply, a morning at the thrift stores and lunch at a local Mexican restaurant that made me long for La Roca in a way I never thought I would.
31 years together means we have much more life together than we had apart. 31 years means the kids are almost gone- Charis will graduate this year and Zoe next. Empty nest is on the horizon. 31 years means that talk of 50 years together doesn't seem that far fetched. I am so grateful for 31 years.
After 31 years it's hard to know what to do to improve your relationship. Not that ours picture perfect and therefore needs no help, but because we understand the limitations of our relationship, our partners and ourselves. In a sense our expectations are more realistic. There are, however, two things that have changed our relationship over this past year. The first was praying together every night. We took the 40 day prayer challenge and it grew. (Read about it here:
http://onacleardaywv.blogspot.com/2012/03/prayer-experiment.html ) We prayed together every day for a long time, something we had been unable to manage earlier in our married life. Honestly, we no longer pray together every day, but we do pray every night that we go to bed together, (we try to do that most nights) and that prayer time has become very precious. It has changed our relationship. It has changed the way I look at my husband.
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| Decorating the Christmas tree- 2012 |
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Another thing that has changed our marriage over the last few months is getting up together in the morning. Mark is a school bus driver as well as a pastor, and he gets up at 5:30 every morning. Getting up early is something that I have never been able to do consistently, but as I prayed about what to do to strengthen our marriage, I began to feel very strongly that this was the right thing to do. I really had no clue that it would change my marriage. Mark was perfectly willing for me to stay in bed. He tried to turn off his alarm before it rang and crept around the bedroom in the dark getting dressed, trying not to wake me. He wouldn't ask me to get up with him, but I could tell immediately that he was glad I did. We usually eat something together and then just read our Bibles before he gets ready to go to work. I kiss him goodbye. It's all very un-profound, but it has made our marriage better. It has changed so many little things. In all honesty, I still miss a morning here and there. I suffer from insomnia occasionally, and while Mark has no trouble going from weekend or vacation mode back to the work schedule, I struggle with that and sometimes sleep through. But the unforseen benefits have been so great that I keep trying, and usually succeed. A personal benefit is that there is so much more time in my morning. Getting up at 5:30 gives you much more time than getting up at 7:00 or 7:30.
So, is there a moral to this story? I don't know. Just don't give up. Keep trying to do the right thing for your marriage. Enjoy your spouse. Have a great day.
