marriage conference report

the Family Life "Weekend to Remember" marriage conference this weekend was quite overwhelming, in a good way. we really appreciated the empasis that they would say..."we cant fix your marriage, you cant fix your marriage...only Jesus can." there were volumes of information about God's purpose and plan for marriage, and communication and intimacy and parenting, etc. we're excited to be able to sift through it and dig into the parts of ourselves and our relationship that need it. we were quite exhausted - both physically and emotionally - after friday night, all day saturday, and all day sunday. one refreshing thing that the main speaker said late on sunday was that we should take a break to let our emotional muscles recover from such a workout. good advice, especially considering our tendency to roll up our sleves and try to fix everything at once right away.

I need to consult my notes (in the 250 page manual we came away with) to be more specific, but I took away some good lessons from all the lectures. like the need to lead us in prayer regularly. also I need to let Michelle know that I cherish her more through specific actions and planned events. basically, I've lost that loving feeling. while I serve her as I am able and take care of her needs, her heart needs to be spoken to in more romantic ways. so we're going to have a date night once a month. any baby-sitters out there? :-) also, I want to find a mentor who can help me through all this husband and daddy stuff. I just cant make it on my own. and I need to learn how better to share my feelings as we communicate. and we need to explore our roles more, and take them up as we ought to, especially as I'm a natural follower and she's a natural leader. this makes the whole headship thing a little tricky sometimes.

anyway, lots of lessons to be had. we just pray that God will apply those that He wants the most for our marriage. so in case you couldnt tell, we HIGHLY recommend this conference (there's lots of them around the nation). many thanks for your prayers for Michelle's health, and many thanks to our church for providing some of the funds to go.

we really missed Caleb during the weekend, but my mom did a great job taking care of him, and she even was our "cleaning fairy" as we would say...."hey, I think she dusted in here!" or "wow she did all that laundry too." not to mention all the latest baby stuff needs she got for us. we are well taken care of.