Brooke M
Who knew that two genders, that think completely differently from one another, who are made with God-given distinctive attributes would get into deep waters once married?
I mean, I couldn’t even fathom that when my spouse & I were dating because we were on such cloud 9 in love! I figured as soon as we said “I Do” that everything would just sort of fall into place on their own. Turns out God made us unique and we still had a lot to learn about each other after the big day…
Tyler and I had been married 7 years when we went to our first marriage retreat, through The Shelter Foundation. While I wouldn’t say our marriage was on the rocks or struggling by any means, when we decided to go to the ‘Walk To Remember’ retreat we didn’t realize until then how much better things could really be!
My husband and I are similar in many ways, yet also different and there were many things we didn’t know about one another before stepping into marriage. But we strongly believe that what God joins together let no man separate (Matt 19:6) so why not strengthen that bond as much as we can?
I won’t ever forget when the speaker asked us to rate our marriage based on various analysis questions; we both voted a 7 out of 10. It was an eye opener that there was room for improvement, in which the retreat really helped us dive into those specific areas. It was refreshing to communicate on a level we really hadn’t done before to that extent! And doing it with other couples who also understood the first responder life, the areas of struggle, was something we were able to confide in with other couples who went as well.
While I had always seen a retreat as something for “struggling couples” prior to going, it was really just something we needed to Armor up in order to withstand the fiery darts of the adversary who comes to steel, kill & destroy (John 10:10) with no exception of a Christ centered marriage! I would strongly encourage anyone who wants to strengthen their marriage based on Biblical principals to go! You have nothing to lose & everything to gain.
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