How to Grow Your Marriage with 15 + 1 Lessons Learned

by | Oct 26, 2023 | Grace in Marriage, Growing in Grace, Home Page

Do you want to grow your marriage as we do? Discover how with 15 + 1 lessons learned from a recent marriage conference.

The Sacred Surrender of Self

“Can you wait just a little bit longer?”

I was on a silent retreat, half a world away when I heard God whisper these words. I was thirty-three, single, headed into full-time ministry, and learning how to recognize God’s voice.

Perched on my rock, surrounded by tall grasses and a slow-flowing creek, I surrendered my heart—I don’t have to be married to serve You well or live into Your abundance. I know that now, and I’m okay with it.

In the stillness of that sacred surrender, I caught sight of a bird cresting a nearby hill. Soon after, another feathered friend joined it.

For a while, they flew as if tethered by some invisible string—a majestic pair aloft by the gentle winds of their journey together.

Moments later, one of them veered off on its own path before careening back, as if it might take out its flight partner.

In time, they found their “together” again—cresting hills, landing in the charred remains of what had been a forest fire while pronouncing their own melody along the way.

Twenty years later, the memory of those birds and their partnered path speaks regularly in my own marriage. God has impressed many things on my heart about this ups and downs, ins and outs pathway of life together.

The Sacred Surrender that Teaches How to Grow Your Marriage

In celebration of our Sixteenth Wedding Anniversary, please join me in holding onto 16 reflections (including quotes from our recent Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference) that straighten our path and strengthen that invisible string that binds us together.

  1. God is enough. Let Him be enough.
  2. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change…The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married. Stanley Hauerwas
  3. I don’t have to stay angry for God to get my spouse’s attention.
  4. The ‘cute little quirks’ I casually noticed when dating are now irritations that REALLY irk me if I feed them.
  5. The gospel is about fresh starts and new beginnings. Paul David Tripp
  6. Nobody wins when one of us loses. My spouse is not my enemy. (There is an Enemy who wants to take down marriage, but it is not your spouse.)
  7. Think before speaking. Beware of reckless words.
    Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. Proverbs 12:18, NLT
  8. God is not surprised or put off by our differences. Why am I?
  9. The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. George Bernard Shaw
  10. My spouse is good at many things I’m not!
  11. No marriage is static—you are either moving toward oneness or drifting toward isolation. Weekend to Remember
  12. My spouse genuinely wants my help.
  13. A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. Ruth Bell Graham
  14. There’s more than one way to get across town—and that’s OK!
  15. A soulmate isn’t someone you find; it’s someone you intentionally and prayerfully become. Weekend to Remember
  16. Even our weak love does not deter God.

What do all these lessons hold in common to grow your marriage?

Surrender. It’s what’s growing ours.

Grace for your space (and your marriage),

Jennifer