Home, Chicken Pox and Festival of Marriage

We arrived home last night after a wonderful trip to Ridgecrest, NC, for the 2008 LifeWay Festival of Marriage. We had a great weekend - Thursday night through Sunday night - while our children spent much anticipated time with both sets of grandparents. Upon arriving home, my mother said that she was concerned that Abigail may have the chicken pox - and of course - she does! She is so proud of her pox - almost like she won a prize or something. She seems to have a pretty mild case and is feeling fine. I stayed home with her today and Mike is keeping her home tomorrow.

The Lord has done so much in our lives this past weekend. We stayed on the Ridgecrest campus - and although it kept us from doing as much as we would have liked to with our friends that attended, it did allow us to totally focus on one another and our relationship with God - which is a rare thing for us to get three days to do and we were grateful for it.

And, as I said previously, we are still trying to process it all. We were blessed to attend 6 different workshops, including topics such as Spiritual Intimacy, How to Date Your Mate, Prayer and Bible Study with your Spouse, The Four Seasons of Marriage, and Extraordinary Marriage. We had a delightful time sharing with other couples in the areas and issues that every marriage faces. It was wonderful to laugh, cry and learn together as husband and wife. And, I was so proud to be there with Michael. He truly is a great spiritual leader, husband, father and friend - and he is a grand model - in my mind's eye - of what a scripturally-based husband should be. We had many 'a-ha' moments when the light bulb came on - the elevator went to the top floor for both of us. We would look at each other and nod - implying "yep - we are going to start doing that now!" We also truly loved worshipping together on Fri./Sat. nights and Sunday morning. You see, we often worship together - in the same building. But, with Michael's current role as worship leader in our home church and me on the 3rd row from the front with two rough-housing boys in head-locks, it is hard to get the "worshipping two-gether" thing going strong. We loved being side-by-side, holding hands, holding each other, singing and raising holy hands to the Lord in worship. It was a highlight for us, for sure. On Saturday night, we were able to participate in an incredibly moving "Vow Renewal Candlelight service." How moving it was to stand - after 11 1/2 years of marriage - after 11 1/2 years of ups and downs - and re-promise it all. We both cried so much - it means so much more now because of what we have been through. We had a delightful time visiting with church family who attended as well during the workshops, the meals, and the travel. We were able to glean some awesome ideas from them as well for improving our home lives that we plan to implement in our home very soon, including regular family meetings, monthly family nights, books to read and studies to participate in as well as many other great ideas. We are blessed with many great Christians friends - brothers and sisters who love us for who we are!

The most exciting part of attending a conference like this is not the mountain-top elation that you feel while you are there. It is the coming home - the 'making-it-happen-in-the real-world' - that we look forward to. For example, in the How to Date Your Mate workshop, we got to actually plan 12 date nights - one for every month of the next year. We were able to plan what we going to do, where we were going to go, whether or not we would eat a meal or snacks while there, the budget, any preparation needed and a back-up plan for each one. Some examples include a movie night, progressive dinner, hiking, game night, etc. We have them all planned out and are excited to get the first one going...after we figure out childcare of course!

We have decided that we want to have a Matthew 6:33 marriage - our challenge to you this night..."But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you..."