Marriage advice
Yesterday I was cleaning out one of our kitchen drawers and I found what appeared to be a collection of recipes bound together by a single metal ring. I looked at them more closely and saw that the first recipe card proclaimed "Recipe for A Wonderful Christ-Centered Marriage! We All Love You!" It was a party gift from one of Mrs. Happy's bridal showers back in March of 1998. All the ladies at the shower wrote marriage advice on recipe cards and gave them to her at the end of the shower. Here are some of the nuggets of wisdom we received early on. (These were all hand-written. I have tried to preserve all the capitalizations, spellings, and notations as much as possible.)
Make the big effort to "make memories." Right now it will al be special, joyful times. In a year or two…it may take more effort~but it will all be worth it. Have Candlelight dinners once a week! (it makes it all taste better AND do this once the kids come too :) Surprise Kurt with notes of love in his lunch box - socks drawer… Ask His mom how to fix his favorite meal & dessert…then do it! Make every day Precious!
Never go to bed angry with one another.
<this card consisted of a picture of a gingerbread man with the various body parts labeled>
• eyes to always look for the best in each other
• ears to always listen
• arms to give a hug every morning & every evening
• an extra large heart to always forgive and always big enough for growing love
• feet with no heels, so you can never turn & run away, but always move forward togetherAlways remember to keep God first, then each other. Don't let all the business of life start to become more of a priority than each other. When children come along remember they do not come before the husband or the wife. Remember:
God - first
family - second
everything else - thirdOne word for your stable marriage: forgiveness. It worked for us!
1) Have plenty of laughs. Make lots of jokes especially when circumstances aren't perfect. 2) Cook in large quantity and freeze the leftovers.
I can say for sure that this is all good, practical advice. Still, we didn't really listen to it or understand it at the time. Having been through six years of marriage and learning this all from experience, it makes a lot more sense now.
