Okay, so as promised, here is my summary of Family Life's "Weekend To Remember" - Gaylord Hotel, National Harbor
First, to my athiest, non-believing or agnostic readers, this conference was DEFINITELY based on Godly/Biblical principles. However, the material was LOADED with practical methods for healthy relationships. The difference being is the
foundational belief that marriage was created by God, and that centering your marriage on God & plugging into His power source is of utmost importance. So, if you're not too "spiritually intimidated," read on.
One of the key points of the conference that really struck home to me was:
All marriages are either moving toward ONENESS or drifting toward ISOLATION. I truly believe this.
Think about it: does anything in our culture encourage us to achieve marital oneness? Furthermore, each person in a marriage enters into the relationship with their own set of blueprints. We each come from contrasting backgrounds – values; vocations, religious, financial, family history, past relationships and painful experiences. And we enter into marriage under superficial motivations, such as: feelings (the worst basis for marriage, as feelings change!); sexual attraction/or involvement; culture; family pressures, or escape. So we have different expectations, which result in unexpected adjustments – roles, (e.g., who turns out the lights at night), expression of love, sexual performance and plans for the future. And face it, when couples fail to make adjustments to move toward oneness, the result is isolation. (Dr. Rainey’s little boy defined isolation as “being excluded” – and when you put it that way, it really gets you thinking of how awful it feels to be excluded.)
So the result is inevitable – difficulties arise in a failure to respond properly. And our response will either drive us apart, or bind us together. Winston Churchill said, “Wars are never won by evacuation.” I love this quote. Most of us either escape, attack, deny, analyze, or suppress the emotions that come out of the difficulties that arise. Next is the search for an escape through a variety of extramarital affairs – and these need not be sexual affairs – rather a search for fulfillment outside of marriage. These can be involvement in activities, accumulating material items, career, fantasies, addictions, (social networking, romance novels) or even a real love affair. Never stop Romancing Your Spouse! Another great practice to apply! Our culture seduces us to believe that we DESERVE complete fulfillment and perfect happiness. So we develop a misperception of reality. We begin to compare our expectation and fantasies to real life. Just look at the exploding popularity of Reality TV shows. And we begin to question reality, and not our fantasies. The result is typically isolation.
Our culture promotes and encourages selfishness and we all have a natural tendency to be self-centered. Because we marry with “stars in our eyes,” we do not see this reality. Selfishness robs the relationship of romance. And our selfish nature focuses on and becomes critical of our spouse’s weaknesses, mistakes, & failures to meet our expectations. Difficulties are inevitable and require difficult adjustments. Outlining the natural progression with the wrong blueprints – leads to a Natural Drift. We learned about phases of married life – the romantic phase, the reality phase, the renovation phase, retaliation, leading to the rejection phase.
The goal of marriage is oneness, not isolation. If we are not intentionally moving toward oneness, our marriages drift toward isolation. I really believe this to be true.
Communication – we learned so much about this essential skill! We all communicate in various ways – and on various levels! In looking at communications styles, you can see how misunderstandings develop when we are at opposite ends of the styles. However, we can promote healthy communication by adjusting our style …..
So another goal is to get to the next level of communication. And don’t let anger sabotage your communications. The path to oneness -- God’s purposes, God’s plan, God’s power, God’s process, and God’s product for marriage. A lot of time was spent on each of these paths, so I encourage those of you interested, to consider attending one of these marriage conferences. From here, we participated in several eye-opening exercises together as a couple.
Marriage is more significant than you may have thought. Designed by God and defined by God. Marriage is at the center of God’s purpose for mankind. God joined man and woman together so that together they would mirror his image. He called this union: Marriage.
Unlocking the mystery – what if marriage is about more than just your happiness?? Couples who mirror God’s image experience oneness in their marriage. What if God created marriage to make us holy and not just happy?? God designed marriage as the first social institution. The first system of interdependent relationships – not co-dependent. A priority relationship of the family. Oneness in marriage is only possible when we consider our spouse BEFORE we consider ourselves. This is not natural, but it’s a choice! Unity, not just union. When marriage is weak, we see weak families. When marriage is weak, we have weak communities. Weak families & marriages destroy the social structure. Another point I believe to be true.
Invest in the next generation!!! We looked into the importance of sexual identify that children must see in a harmonious marriage modeled by parents. The best hope for children to understand unconditional love comes as parents demonstrate that kind of love in the home. Today we see so many child-centered homes. The best gift we can give to our kids is to LOVE each other! Your spouse needs to be the primary relationship in your life. Then we were encouraged to write a tribute to your parents. Have you ever thought of doing this? I love this idea!
A pre-nuptial agreement outlines how we will sever our relationship if it fails. Talk about doom! Our pre-nuptial agreement should be “Til death do us part.”
Then much discussion of how God provided Eve for Adam. We were urged to consider our spouse as God’s perfect gift for us. (I named my husband “GFG” (my gift from God) – and I believe it! Receiving them is NOT based on their performance. It’s a process – that begins as we break dependencies from our past and cling to each other. Growing toward oneness makes it possible for a man and woman as a couple to become more than they ever could have been apart. And physical intimacy is an expression of this ultimate oneness.
Then we received instructions on how to get he blueprints and defeat the marital drift. Who designed marriage? Self-denial key building block of marriage. Just suppose you could re-write your legacy! Then we were to complete the task of writing a Love Letter to our spouse; share it with them, and the pray together. This was powerful and very emotional for many. The goal is to surface and identify your true feelings toward each other. In the letter, we were asked to commit to trust God with our spouse’s differences and weaknesses and love him unconditionally (apart from performance) and put that in love letter.
To experience oneness in marriage, we must plug into the power source – God. First is faith. We have faith in our brakes, in the chairs we sit upon, in hot water we depend on for showering; so we all have faith in something. And grace was explained as “undeserved favor in the face of deserved wrath.”
How to grow your relationship with God is learning to experience the help and power of the Holy Spirit – and this is a life-long process. “The longer I am with God, the less I understand, but the MORE I know!”
We unpacked how to resolve conflict, which is common in all marriages. The goal is not to be conflict –free, but to be able to handle it correctly when it occurs. This can occur when we are willing to seek and grant forgiveness. Naturally, unfulfilled desires lead to fighting and quarreling. And approach is key – timing and focus. “When you tear down your mate, you tear down your marriage.” So true!
What communicates love to you? The attitude of sexual intimacy? Compliments, touches, looks, spoken words, togetherness? We were asked to reflect on our attitudes toward sexual intimacy and evaluate the health of our companionship, commitment, passion and spiritual intimacy. We took this time to tell each other what communicates love to us – and we both had very different ideas.
Woman to woman – at this point in the conference, we spent some time apart – the women with women, and the men with men – focusing on the individual roles as explained in the Bible.
Growing in her relationship with God comes first; respecting and supporting her husband comes second, and teaching and training children come third. Dance was used as a great visual analogy. Think about it: if both partners when dancing try to lead, you really can’t dance. Our most important human relationship is marriage. What truly matters in life is helping others win. Respect is a choice to receive your husband in spite of his weaknesses. “Weakness is usually a strength over-used. “ (great quote!)
A STRONG woman demonstrates love for her husband by respecting and supporting him. This choice empowers your husband to become the man God created him to be. Have you thought about how thankful you are for your spouse? Think of 1 thing to thank him for each day. “Everyone is under-encouraged!” Support is a choice; it yields your rights to a great goal.” Children learn identity from parents – am I loved, am I a boy or girl, am I good or bad, am I valuable or worthless. Average kid uses 7.5 hours of media a day; constantly streaming and telling them who they are. With today’s media saturation – who do you want to influence your kids? Character is built as you instruct and correct. Good character is reinforced through rewards and consequences. Involvement is at the heart of teaching and training kids. Our responsibility is to prepare our kids for a life of purpose; responsibility. How marriages thrive – the habit of extravagant love; which reflects the love of God.
Extravagant love is a choice, not a feeling. “Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. “ Barnett Brickner.
Combining these ingredients leads to a revolutionary relationship – extravagant love, generous forgiveness and enthusiastic encouragement. Leave a Godly legacy – don’t wait for your spouse to act. Do what God expects of you. The conference wrapped up with all couples standing, facing each other, holding hands, and reciting “Our Marriage Covenant” and we were each given a copy to take home with us. “In the presence of God, and these witnesses, and by a holy covenant, I, state your name, joyfully receive you as God’s perfect gift for me, to have and to hold, etc. And then at the top it reads: “Believing that God, in His wisdom and providence, has established marriage as a covenant relationship between one an and one woman, a sacred and lifelong promise, reflecting our unconditional love for one another and believing that God intends for the marriage covenant to reflect His promise to never leave us or forsake us. What a beautiful weekend and we both left feeling very excited to be together as a couple, believing that we are a gift from God to each other! And the work for us on intentionally moving toward Oneness & avoiding the natural drift has begun!
Joan Stansfield, Realtor Cell: 703.919.7761
Fax: 703.856.3615 Fax
Email:
JoanS@LNF.com http://www.Elevate-RealEstate.com Twitter: JoanElevatesRE
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