By Sabrina Church

Our community is full of beautiful marriages. We would not be the community that we are without marriage and family. It is beneficial to our community, and to those around us, when we have healthy marriages and healthy families.

Never feel guilty about making quality time with your spouse and/or children. What you focus on in your life is what will blossom. If we are mostly focusing on our hobbies, jobs, friends, or projects those things will flourish. The things we neglect are the things that will suffer. When you do not prioritize your marriage and your children, you will not have a healthy family. Our spouses and our children are the most important people in our lives, and they deserve our attention.

I am not good at gardening, I do not have a green thumb, I have more of a black thumb (ha). Regardless of my black thumb, a friend gave me some flowers one day. I had the flowers sitting outside in a planter, but I was not paying much attention to them. Somehow, even in my neglect, I had one flower bloom; It was gorgeous! But all the other stems were dead and hanging over.

Marriage can be exactly like those flowers. You can have an area of your marriage grow and look beautiful, but so many other areas can be falling apart and need nurturing. Others may not see the damage, but you do, and your spouse does, and you know all the issues that are there decaying over time.

If you are not careful, you can take credit and boast about the one beautiful thing that God blessed in your marriage. I could have boasted about my one gorgeous flower, but while you are boasting about something you did not even grow, you can ignore all the rest of the areas that need attention and are dying. It is so important for you to look at all the areas in your marriage and see the parts that may need nourishment and growth. What areas need watering? Does anything need to be pruned? Do you need better soil or “solutions” for the issues? Are you spending quality time together and building memories? There are so many different areas in marriage to examine and nurture, that is why quality time is so valuable.

Our home lives are really the core of who we are, if we are being completely honest with ourselves. When you have a healthy marriage, it does not only benefit you and your spouse, it overflows into all the other areas in your life. Healthy marriages are life giving and your marriage can shine in the bleak, dark areas of our community and in this world. Your healthy marriage can give others hope.

God made marriage, He loves marriage, and He has a purpose for it. I believe the best thing you can do for your marriage is to pray for your spouse. You can start by asking God to protect them, guide them, tell God whatever needs your spouse may have, and ask God how you can better your relationship with your spouse.

A scripture in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” When you include God in your marriage, He is that third strand, and He makes your marriage so much stronger. God loves relationships. He wants a relationship with people, and He wants you to have a good and blessed relationship with your spouse. He is for your marriage, not against it. So lean on Him, and He will guide you each and every step of the way!

Remember, what you focus on and put the majority of your time into is what will flourish, what you neglect is what will decay.