Marriage is No Walk in the Park...

From a Child's perspective... The Great Debate: Is It Better to Be Single or Married?

"You should ask the people who read Cosmopolitan"
-Kirsten, ten years old

"It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need somebody to clean up after them"
-Anita, nine years old

"It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid. I don't need that kind of trouble."
-Will, seven years old

**Warning! Deep thoughts ahead!! If you want a happy, photo filled blog, just skip the below! :) **

Let's face it - Marriage is hard. Whoever it was that said marriage is a walk in the park was definitely drinking the Kool-aid ;) Sure, marriage has its perks but it's a ton of work as well.

I (Jody) love it when Zach uses this analogy - Marriage is like two jagged edged rocks put in a bag and shaken up. It hurts a bit (sometimes a lot) but when the shaking up is done, out comes two smooth rocks. Marriage will always have it's challenges and obstacles, but it's to make us become better people - people of character. (Blah! ;o)

I have recently stumbled upon this blog for women, and one of the contributing writers wrote this on her personal blog the other day,

"There is a war on families and marriages these days. We need to be intentional about spending time together, loving one another, and making memories."

This is so true. If marriage was easy all the time everyone would be together! How many marriages have you seen fail? How many of your personal friends have gotten divorced? Maybe you yourself are divorced. It's tough!

As a fairly newly married couple ourselves (3 years and 3 months), we have faced our own obstacles and challenges, but something that has really helped us is friends who we can be honest and open with. A few months into our marriage we found this nearlywed/newlywed Sunday School class and it rocked our world! It was so cool to have other people in the same walk of life as us to talk with and hear that they are going through the same things. What do you know - other couples are having trouble with conflict resolution too! :o)

Two years later we are still a part of this class. Right now our class is going through this awesome book called His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage. We read a chapter as a couple during the week and discuss, share, support and challenge each other in class. It's great and it's exciting to see the changes we see taking place in couple's marriages and lives.

It's so important to surround yourself and your marriage with other people. Like the above quote says - be intentional about seeking out those relationships.

I think the biggest obstacle for some people is thinking they are alone; thinking they are the only ones going through some rough patches here and there. We just want to encourage you, that you're not alone. Or you may be one of those people where things are pretty good in your marriage right now, but still are wanting the friendship of other couples to share life with. Seek out a group of friends and be intentional!

(For those in the Nashville area our class meets every Sunday morning at 9:15 - you're more than welcome to come :) Email us for more info and we'll meet up with you and go in together if you'd like!)

Here are some other books that have made a huge difference in our marriage!

Marriage is super fun and can be such a blessing, but we all at one time or another will hit some hard times... Hope this has blessed you in some way... Thanks for reading :)