Cultivating a Healthy Marriage -

Mike and I listened to this lecture after dinner (a few dinners to be exact - we paused it a few times) and really enjoyed it.  It is full of practical suggestions and techniques to help grow your marriage.  Though cheesy, the analogy of a garden really makes a lot of sense in marriage.  You have to work on it, every day, or it will most definitely have weeds and pests in it.  In a drought, you have to water the garden.  In overwhelming amounts of rain, you have to diligently weed the garden.  Where as in marriage, when life is hard, it's hard on your marriage.  When life is "easy", you still have to work on your marriage.  Tim & Kathy explain it better, but I really enjoyed it.
Another of my favorite points that they made was in regards to debriefing.  They emphasized the importance of debriefing arguments after the fact.  When the air is clear and the nerves have calmed, talking about the fight and where it came from and how we can better communicate next time to keep conversations as that, and not fights.

Did I mention that we also laughed a lot? They make a good team.

From the Redeemer Presbyterian Website:

Using the metaphor of cultivating a garden, Timothy and Kathy Keller address methods of cultivating healthy marriages by exploring eight practical areas in marriage: planning and planting, roles, headship and submission, fertilizing and watering, love language, sex, conflict resolution, forgiveness and repentance, and spiritual life together.

Listen Here

Quick note: The audio tracker moves very slowly, making it seem like the recording is hours and hours long.  In reality, about halfway through, the audio restarts back to the beginning, so you have to fast-forward until you catch back up to where you were.  Not the best technical job ever, but the message is worth it.