Hello friends. If you are married or hope to be, you probably recognize that the marriage license doesn’t come with a user’s manual. There are countless books available on the art of marriage. A quick search of Amazon claims over 70,000 results. So how does one stand a chance to choose a book that will meet your needs and help you develop a strong, lasting marriage?

Truth is, you will probably read through dozens of books and then become discouraged.

My wife, Kris, and I attended a marriage retreat this weekend that I can wholeheartedly recommend. It has been created by Family Life. Their Weekend to Remember has been presented for decades. The event begins on a Friday night, continues Saturday until 4:00, and finishes Sunday at noon. Saturday night is purposely left free to provide a “date night” for each couple. In our opinion, the second time through was much more meaningful than the first.

Don’t get me wrong, we learned a lot and grew stronger in our marriage after that first weekend. But the second time through the material was so much more meaningful. Full confession, I was feeling pretty low on the “happily married” scale when I attended the first weekend. That “depression” allowed me to only take in the most fundamental information I needed for change to begin.

The speakers mention very early Friday night that each of us may be thinking, “I sure hope my spouse is listening today.” Truth is I needed to say to myself, “I sure hope I am listing today.” Both parties need to be involved in a change for the better. If not, there will likely be a change for the worse.

The program is Bible-centered. As they say, the Bible is our “user manual for life” in general. And much is said about healthy and unhealthy marriage relationships. Whether you have a God-centered life or not, the principles hold and are time-tested.

I will end with a quote from a wife, married 10 years, who attends the Weekend to Remember each year with her husband.

It’s a time to refresh, a time to regroup, and a time to remember why we got married. It’s easy for us to forget what our marriage looks like through the year, but we come here each year because we owe [it] to God, ourselves, and our children’s lives.

https://www.familylife.com/weekend-to-remember/alumni/